Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Оскар Уайльд

Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Оскар Уайльд


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when this fiery web is spun,

       Her watchmen shall descry from far

       The young Republic like a sun

       Rise from these crimson seas of war.

      TO MILTON

      Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away

       From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;

       This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours

       Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,

       And the age changed unto a mimic play

       Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:

       For all our pomp and pageantry and powers

       We are but fit to delve the common clay,

       Seeing this little isle on which we stand,

       This England, this sea-lion of the sea,

       By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,

       Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land

       Which bare a triple empire in her hand

       When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

      LOUIS NAPOLEON

      Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings

       When far away upon a barbarous strand,

       In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,

       Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!

      Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red,

       Or ride in state through Paris in the van

       Of thy returning legions, but instead

       Thy mother France, free and republican,

      Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place

       The better laurels of a soldier’s crown,

       That not dishonoured should thy soul go down

       To tell the mighty Sire of thy race

      That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,

       And found it sweeter than his honied bees,

       And that the giant wave Democracy

       Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.

      SONNET

      ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA

      Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones

       Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?

       And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her

       Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?

       For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,

       The priests who call upon Thy name are slain,

       Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain

       From those whose children lie upon the stones?

       Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom

       Curtains the land, and through the starless night

       Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!

       If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb

       Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might

       Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

      QUANTUM MUTATA

      There was a time in Europe long ago

       When no man died for freedom anywhere,

       But England’s lion leaping from its lair

       Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so

       While England could a great Republic show.

       Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care

       Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair

       The Pontiff in his painted portico

       Trembled before our stern ambassadors.

       How comes it then that from such high estate

       We have thus fallen, save that Luxury

       With barren merchandise piles up the gate

       Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:

       Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.

      LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES

      Albeit nurtured in democracy,

       And liking best that state republican

       Where every man is Kinglike and no man

       Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see,

       Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,

       Better the rule of One, whom all obey,

       Than to let clamorous demagogues betray

       Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.

       Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane

       Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street

       For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign

       Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,

       Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,

       Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.

      THEORETIKOS

      This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:

       Of all its ancient chivalry and might

       Our little island is forsaken quite:

       Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,

       And from its hills that voice hath passed away

       Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,

       Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit

       For this vile traffic-house, where day by day

       Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,

       And the rude people rage with ignorant cries

       Against an heritage of centuries.

       It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art

       And loftiest culture I would stand apart,

       Neither for God, nor for his enemies.

       Table of Contents

      It is full summer now, the heart of June;

       Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir

       Upon the upland meadow where too soon

       Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,

       Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,

       And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

      Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,

       That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on

       To vex the rose with jealousy, and still

       The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,

       And like a strayed and wandering reveller

       Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

      The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,

       One pale narcissus loiters fearfully

      


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