TO MY WIFE
WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS

I can write no stately proem
   As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
   I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
   One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
   On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden
   All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
   You will understand.

MAGDALEN WALKS

[After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1874, Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford, where he obtained a demyship at Magdalen College.  He is the only real poet on the books of that institution.]

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
   And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
   The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
   The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
   The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
   And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
   And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
   Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
   And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
   Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
   And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

THEOCRITUS
A VILLANELLE

O singer of Persephone!
   In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still through the ivy flits the bee
   Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!

Simætha calls on Hecate
   And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still by the light and laughing sea
   Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!

And still in boyish rivalry
   Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
   For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?

GREECE

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air;
   We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
   Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
   Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast,
   The ripple of the water on the side,
   The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn,
   And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
   I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

Katakolo.

PORTIA
TO ELLEN TERRY

(Written at the Lyceum Theatre)

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
   To peril all he had upon the lead,
   Or that proud Aragon bent low his head
Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
   Which is more golden than the golden sun
   No woman Veronesé looked upon
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.
Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield
   The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,
And would not let the laws of Venice yield
   Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew—
   O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.

FABIEN DEI FRANCHI
TO MY FRIEND HENRY IRVING

The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,
   The dead that travel fast, the opening door,
   The murdered brother rising through the floor,
The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,
And then the lonely duel in the glade,
   The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,
   Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,—
These things are well enough,—but thou wert made
   For more august creation! frenzied Lear
   Should at thy bidding wander on the heath
   With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo
For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear
Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath—
   Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!

PHÈDRE
TO SARAH BERNHARDT

How vain and dull this common world must seem
   To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
   For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
   With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
   Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
   Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
   The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
   The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.