Oscar Wilde Poems

AS one who poring on a Grecian urn
Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
...

THE silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
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Beautiful star with the crimson lips
And flagrant daffodil hair,
Come back, come back, in the shaking ships
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TREAD lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
...

WITHIN this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure--You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
...

With a Copy of My Poems

I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
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HOW steep the stairs within Kings' houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table,--better far
...

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
...

The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
...

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.
...