The Poetry of Oscar Wilde - Оскар Уайльд

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spring

       God from the dust did raise

       A splendid and goodly thing:

       Man – from the womb of the land,

       Man – from the sterile sod

       Torn by a terrible hand –

       Formed in the image of God.

       But the life of man is a sorrow

       And death a relief from pain,

       For love only lasts till tomorrow

       And life without love is vain.

      £TPO¦H

       And your strength will wither like grass

       Scorched by a pitiless sun,

       And the might of your hands will pass

       And the sands of your life will run.

       O gods not of saving but sorrow

       Whose joy is in weeping of men,

       Who shall lend thee their life, or who borrow

       From others to give thee again?

       O gods ever wrathful and tearless,

       O gods not of night but of day,

       Though your faces be frowning and fearless

       Thy kingdom shall pass – men say.

      ANTI£TPO¦H

       The spirit of man is arisen

       And crowned as a mighty King.

       The people have broken from prison

       And the voices once voiceless now sing.

       Cry aloud, O dethroned and defeated,

       Cry aloud for the fading of might,

       Too long were ye feared and entreated,

       Too long did men worship thy light.

       Aye, weep for your crimes without number,

       The loving and luring of men,

       For your greatness is sunken in slumber,

       Your light will n’er lighten again.

      £TPO¦H B

       But as many a lovely flower

       Is born of a sterile seed,

       In a fatal and fearful hour

       There grew from this creedless breed

       Love – fostered in flame and in fire

       That dies but to blossom again,

       Love – ever distilling desire

       Like wine with the eyelids of men.

       We kneel to the great Iapygian,

       We bow to the Lampsacene’s shrine,

       For hers is the only religion,

       And hers to entice and entwine –

      ANTI£TPO¦H B

       There once was another, men tell us,

       The giver and taker of life,

       A lovingless God and a jealous

       Whose joy was in weeping and strife.

       He is gone; and his temple ‘tis sunken

       In ashes and fallen in dust,

       For the souls of the people are drunken

       With dreams of the Lady of Lust –

       We kneel to the Cyprian Mother,

       We take up our lyres and sing,

       ‘Thou are crowned with the crown of another,

       Thou are throned where another was King.

      Ravenna

       Table of Contents

      This ballad won the Newdigate Prizein 1878.

      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 afterglow 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

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