The Poems of Oscar Wilde E-Book

Oscar Wilde

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 199

Beschreibung

The Poems of Oscar Wilde includes 22 of Wilde's poems. Heraklion Press has included a linked table of contents.

Das E-Book The Poems of Oscar Wilde wird angeboten von Charles River Editors und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
free; kindle; complete; picture of dorian gray; delphi; importance of being earnest

Leseprobe

The Poems of Oscar Wilde

Ravenna

I.

A year ago I breathed the Italian air,—

And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-

These fields made golden with the flower of March,

The throstle singing on the feathered larch,

The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,

The little clouds that race across the sky;

And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head,

The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,

The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,

The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire

Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);

And all the flowers of our English Spring,

Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.

Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,

And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;

And down the river, like a flame of blue,

Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,

While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.

A year ago!—it seems a little time

Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,

Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,

And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.

Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering vines,

Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,

I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,

The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet,

And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,

I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,

The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

O how my heart with boyish passion burned,

When far away across the sedge and mere

I saw that Holy City rising clear,

Crowned with her crown of towers!—On and on

I galloped, racing with the setting sun,

And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,

I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!

II.

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy

Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy

Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day

Comes the glad sound of children at their play:

O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here

A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,

Watching the tide of seasons as they flow

From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,

And have no thought of sorrow;—here, indeed,

Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal weed

Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,

Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,

Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.

For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,

Thy noble dead are with thee!—they at least

Are faithful to thine honour:- guard them well,

O childless city! for a mighty spell,

To wake men’s hearts to dreams of things sublime,

Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

III.

Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,

Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,—

The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,

Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star

Led him against thy city, and he fell,

As falls some forest-lion fighting well.

Taken from life while life and love were new,

He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;

Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head,

And oleanders bloom to deeper red,

Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.

Look farther north unto that broken mound,—

There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb

Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom,

Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,

Sleeps after all his weary conquering.

Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain

Have broken down his stronghold; and again

We see that Death is mighty lord of all,

And king and clown to ashen dust must fall

Mighty indeed THEIR glory! yet to me

Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,

Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,

Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.

His gilded shrine lies open to the air;

And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there

The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,

The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,

The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,

The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,

The weary face of Dante;—to this day,

Here in his place of resting, far away

From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down

Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,

Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise

A marble lily under sapphire skies!

Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain

Of meaner lives,—the exile’s galling chain,

How steep the stairs within kings’ houses are,

And all the petty miseries which mar

Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong.

Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;

Our nations do thee homage,—even she,

That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,

Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,

Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,

And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:

Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;

Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.

IV.

How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!

No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.

The broken chain lies rusting on the door,

And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:

Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run

By the stone lions blinking in the sun.

Byron dwelt here in love and revelry

For two long years—a second Anthony,

Who of the world another Actium made!

Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,

Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,

‘Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.

For from the East there came a mighty cry,

And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,

And called him from Ravenna: never knight

Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!

None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,

Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!

O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,

Thy day of might, remember him who died

To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:

O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain!

O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!

O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!

He loved you well—ay, not alone in word,

Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,

Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:

And England, too, shall glory in her son,

Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.

No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite

Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,

Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.

For as the olive-garland of the race,

Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face,

As the red cross which saveth men in war,

As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far

By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,—

Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:

Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene

Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,

In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;

The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine,

And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

V.

The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze

With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,

And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;—

I wandered through the wood in wild delight,

Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,

Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,

Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,

And small birds sang on every twining spray.

O waving trees, O forest liberty!

Within your haunts at least a man is free,

And half forgets the weary world of strife:

The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life

Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again

The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.

Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see

Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy

Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid

In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,

The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face

Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,

White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,

And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!

Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!

Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,

The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell,

Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.

Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours

Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,

And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

VI.

O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told

Of thy great glories in the days of old:

Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see

Caesar ride forth to royal victory.

Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew

From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;

And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,

Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.

Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,

Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!

No longer now upon thy swelling tide,

Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!

For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,

The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;

And the white sheep are free to come and go

Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.

O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!

In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,

Alone of all thy sisters; for at last

Italia’s royal warrior hath passed

Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown

In the high temples of the Eternal Town!

The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,

And with his name the seven mountains ring!

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,

And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again,

New risen from the waters! and the cry

Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,

Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where

The marble spires of Milan wound the air,

Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,

And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,

Thy ruined palaces are but a pall

That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name

Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame

Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun

Of new Italia! for the night is done,

The night of dark oppression, and the day

Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away

The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,

Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand

Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,

From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died

In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side

Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—

Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:

And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine

From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,

Thou hast not followed that immortal Star

Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.

Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,

As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,

Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,

Mourning some day of glory, for the sun

Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,

And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,

Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,

Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there,

To mock all human greatness: who would dare

To vent the paltry sorrows of his life

Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife

Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride

Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride

Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!

The Queen of double Empires! and to thee

Were not the nations given as thy prey!

And now—thy gates lie open night and day,

The grass grows green on every tower and hall,

The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;

And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest

The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.

O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,

O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,

Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,

But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,

From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;

Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,

Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?

Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose

To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;

As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold

From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;

As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

O much-loved city! I have wandered far

From the wave-circled islands of my home;

Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome

Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,

Clothed in the royal purple of the day:

I from the city of the violet crown

Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,

And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea

From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;

Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,

As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen

Some twenty summers cast their doublets green

For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain

To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,

Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed

Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed,

Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,

And flame across the heavens! and to try

Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know

That never felt my heart a nobler glow

Than when I woke the silence of thy street

With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet,

And saw the city which now I try to sing,

After long days of weary travelling.

VII.

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,

I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow

From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:

The sky was as a shield that caught the stain

Of blood and battle from the dying sun,

And in the west the circling clouds had spun

A royal robe, which some great God might wear,

While into ocean-seas of purple air

Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night

Brings back the swelling tide of memory,

And wakes again my passionate love for thee:

Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come

On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;

And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,

And send up lilies for some boy to mow.

Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,

Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,

Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,

And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;

And after that the Winter cold and drear.

So runs the perfect cycle of the year.

And so from youth to manhood do we go,

And fall to weary days and locks of snow.

Love only knows no winter; never dies:

Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies

And mine for thee shall never pass away,

Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,

The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,

And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.

Perchance before our inland seas of gold

Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,

Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,

I may behold thy city; and lay down

Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,

Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,

Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well

Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

Poems (1881)

The True Knowledge

Thou knowest all — I seek in vain

 What lands to till or sow with seed —

 The land is black with briar and weed,

Nor cares for falling tears or rain.

Thou knowest all — I sit and wait

 With blinded eyes and hands that fail,

 Till the last lifting of the veil,

And the first opening of the gate.

Thou knowest all — I cannot see.

 I trust I shall not live in vain,

 I know that we shall meet again,

In some divine eternity.

A Lament

O well for him who lives at ease

 With garnered gold in wide domain,

 Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,

The crashing down of forest trees.

O well for him who ne’er hath known

 The travail of the hungry years,

 A father grey with grief and tears,

A mother weeping all alone.

But well for him whose feet hath trod

 The weary road of toil and strife,

 Yet from the sorrows of his life

Builds ladders to be nearer God.

Wasted Days

A fair slim boy not made for this world’s pain.

 With hair of gold thick clustering round his ears,

 And longing eyes half veiled by foolish tears

Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:

Pale cheeks whereon no kiss hath left its stain,

 Red under lip drawn for fear of Love,

 And white throat whiter than the breast of dove.

Alas! alas! if all should be in vain.

Behind, wide fields, and reapers all a-row

 In heat and labour toiling wearily,

To no sweet sound of laughter or of lute.

The sun is shooting wide its crimson glow,

Still the boy dreams: nor knows that night is nigh,

And in the night-time no man gathers fruit.

Lotus Leaves

I

There is no peace beneath the moon,—

 Ah! in those meadows is there peace

 Where, girdled with a silver fleece,

As a bright shepherd, strays the moon?

Queen of the gardens of the sky,

 Where stars like lilies, white and fair,

 Shine through the mists of frosty air,

Oh, tarry, for the dawn is nigh!

Oh, tarry, for the envious day

 Stretches long hands to catch thy feet.

 Alas! but thou art overfleet,

Alas! I know thou wilt not stay.

II

Eastward the dawn has broken red,

 The circling mists and shadows flee;

 Aurora rises from the sea,

And leaves the crocus-flowered bed.

Eastward the silver arrows fall,

 Splintering the veil of holy night:

 And a long wave of yellow light

Breaks silently on tower and hall.

And speeding wide across the wold

 Wakes into flight some fluttering bird;

 And all the chestnut tops are stirred,

And all the branches streaked with gold.

III

To outer senses there is peace,

 A dream-like peace on either hand,

 Deep silence in the shadowy land,

Deep silence where the shadows cease,

Save for a cry that echoes shrill

 From some lone bird disconsolate;

 A curlew calling to its mate;

The answer from the distant hill.

And, herald of my love to Him

 Who, waiting for the dawn, doth lie,

 The orbed maiden leaves the sky,

And the white firs grow more dim.

IV

Up sprang the sun to run his race,

 The breeze blew fair on meadow and lea,

But in the west I seemed to see

The likeness of a human face.

A linnet on the hawthorn spray

 Sang of the glories of the spring,

 And made the flow’ring copses ring

With gladness for the new-born day.

A lark from out the grass I trod

 Flew wildly, and was lost to view

 In the great seamless veil of blue

That hangs before the face of God.

The willow whispered overhead

 That death is but a newer life

 And that with idle words of strife

We bring dishonour on the dead.

I took a branch from off the tree,

 And hawthorn branches drenched with dew,

 I bound them with a sprig of yew,

And made a garland fair to see.

I laid the flowers where He lies

 (Warm leaves and flowers on the stones):

 What joy I had to sit alone

Till evening broke on tired eyes:

Till all the shifting clouds had spun

 A robe of gold for God to wear

 And into seas of purple air

Sank the bright galley of the sun.

V

Shall I be gladdened for the day,

 And let my inner heart be stirred

 By murmuring tree or song of bird,

And sorrow at the wild winds’ play?

Not so, such idle dreams belong

 To souls of lesser depth than mine;

 I feel that I am half divine;

I that I am great and strong.

I know that every forest tree

 By labour rises from the root

 I know that none shall gather fruit

By sailing on the barren sea.

Impressions

I

Le Jardin

The lily’s withered chalice falls

 Around its rod of dusty gold,

 And from the beeeh trees on the wold

The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower

 Hangs black and barren on its stalk,

 And down the windy garden walk

The dead leaves scatter,— hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk

 Are blown into a snowy mass;

 The roses lie upon the grass,

Like little shreds of crimson silk.

II

La Mer

A white mist drifts across the shrouds,

 A wild moon in this wintry sky

 Gleams like an angry lion’s eye

Out of a mane of tawny clouds.

The muffled steersman at the wheel

 Is but a shadow in the gloom;—

 And in the throbbing engine room

Leap the long rods of polished steel.

The shattered storm has left its trace

 Upon this huge and heaving dome,

 For the thin threads of yellow foam

Float on the waves like ravelled lace.

Under the Balcony

O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!

 O moon with the brows of gold!

Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south!

  And light for my love her way,

  Lest her feet should stray

 On the windy hill and the wold!

O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!

 O moon with the brows of gold!

O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!

 O ship with the wet, white sail!

Put in, put in, to the port to me!

  For my love and I would go

  To the land where the daffodils blow

 In the heart of a violet dale!

O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!

 O ship with the wet, white sail!

O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!

 O bird that sits on the spray!

Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat!

  And my love in her little bed

  Will listen, and lift her head

 From the pillow, and come my way!

O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!

 O bird that sits on the spray!

O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!

 O blossom with lips of snow!

Come down, Come down, for my love to wear!

  You will die in her head in a crown,

  You will die in a fold of her gown,

 To her little light heart you will go!

O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!

 O blossom with lips of snow!

A Fragment

Beautiful star with the crimson lips

 And flagrant daffodil hair,

Come back, come back, in the shaking ships

  O’er the much-overrated sea,

  To the hearts that are sick for thee

 With a woe worse than mal de mer —

O beautiful stars with the crimson lips

 And the flagrant daffodil hair.

O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,

 Neath the flag of the wan White Star,

Thou bringest a brighter star with thee

  From the land of the Philistine,

  Where Niagara’s reckoned fine

 And Tupper is popular —

O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,

 Neath the flag of the wan White Star.

Le Jardin Des Tuileries

This winter air is keen and cold,

 And keen and cold this winter sun,

 But round my chair the children run

Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk

 The mimic soldiers strut and stride,

 Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide

In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons

 Her book, they steal across the square

 And launch their paper navies where

Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,

 And now they rush, a boisterous band —

 And, tiny hand on tiny hand,

Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,

 And children climbed me, for their sake

 Though it be winter I would break

Into spring blossoms white and blue!

Sonnet

On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters

These are the letters which Endymion wrote

 To one he loved in secret and apart,