Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

Part 1

Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE

INCLUDING

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

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METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

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This Volume was First August 17th, 1911 Published Second Edition August 1911 Third Edition September 1911

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‘The Ballad of Reading Goal’ was first published by Leonard Smithers, February 13th, 1898. Second Edition, February, 1898. Third Edition, March 1898. Fourth Edition, March 1898. Fifth Edition, March 1898. Sixth Edition, 1898. Seventh Edition, 1899. Eighth and Cheaper Edition (1s. net). Methuen & Co., Ltd., August 1910. Ninth Edition, September 1910. ‘The Ballad of Reading Goal’ was published anonymously under the signature of C. 3. 3. The author’s name first appeared on the title-page of the Seventh Edition. It was included in the Collected Edition of the author’s Poems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and 1909.

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Wilde’s Poems were first published in volume form in 1881, and were reprinted four times before the end of 1882. A new edition with additional poems, including Ravenna, The Sphinx, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, was first published (limited issues on hand-made paper and Japanese vellum) by Methuen & Co. in March 1908. A further edition (making the seventh) with some omissions from the issue of 1908, but including two new poems, was published in September 1909. Eighth Edition, November 1909. Ninth Edition, December 1909.

PREFACE

IT is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde’s early verses may be of interest to a large public at present familiar only with the always popular Ballad of Reading Gaol, also included in this volume. The poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex years old, and though never, until recently, well received by the critics, have survived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able to make for themselves the obvious and striking contrasts between these first and last phases of Oscar Wilde’s literary activity. The intervening period was devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and criticism.

ROBERT ROSS

REFORM CLUB, April 5, 1911.

CONTENTS

PAGE PREFACE v THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (Complete Version) 1 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (Shorter Version) 61 AVE IMPERATRIX 89 TO MY WIFE (WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS) 100 MAGDALEN WALKS 102 THEOCRITUS—A VILLANELLE 106 SONNETS— GREECE 108 PORTIA (TO ELLEN TERRY) 110 FABIEN DEI FRANCHI (TO HENRY IRVING) 112 PHÈDRE (TO SARAH BERNHARDT) 114 ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE 116 SISTINE CHAPEL AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA 118 LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES 120 ROSES AND RUE 122 FROM ‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’ 128 THE HARLOT’S HOUSE 140 FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’ 144 FLOWER OF LOVE 158

NOTE

AT the end of the complete text will be found a shorter version based on the original draft of the poem. This is included for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary executor, by falling back on a text which represents the author’s first scheme for a poem—never intended of course for recitation.

ROBERT ROSS

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IN MEMORIAM C. T. W. Sometimes trooper of The Royal Horse Guards Obiit H.M. Prison Reading, Berkshire July 7th, 1896

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

HE did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low, ‘That fellow’s got to swing.’

Part 2

Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel, And the sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought Quickened his step, and why He looked upon the garish day With such a wistful eye; The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame On a day of dark disgrace, Nor have a noose about his neck, Nor a cloth upon his face, Nor drop feet foremost through the floor Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men Who watch him night and day; Who watch him when he tries to weep, And when he tries to pray; Who watch him lest himself should rob The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see Dread figures throng his room, The shivering Chaplain robed in white, The Sheriff stern with gloom, And the Governor all in shiny black, With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste To put on convict-clothes, While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes Each new and nerve-twitched pose, Fingering a watch whose little ticks Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst That sands one’s throat, before The hangman with his gardener’s gloves Slips through the padded door, And binds one with three leathern thongs, That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear The Burial Office read, Nor, while the terror of his soul Tells him he is not dead, Cross his own coffin, as he moves Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air Through a little roof of glass: He does not pray with lips of clay For his agony to pass; Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek The kiss of Caiaphas.

SIX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, In the suit of shabby grey: His cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay, But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every wandering cloud that trailed Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair: He only looked upon the sun, And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep, Nor did he peek or pine, But he drank the air as though it held Some healthful anodyne; With open mouth he drank the sun As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain, Who tramped the other ring, Forgot if we ourselves had done A great or little thing, And watched with gaze of dull amaze The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass With a step so light and gay, And strange it was to see him look So wistfully at the day, And strange it was to think that he Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the springtime shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace For which all worldlings try: But who would stand in hempen band Upon a scaffold high, And through a murderer’s collar take His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

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