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125 Works of Oscar Wilde

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The Canterville Ghost

Story type: Literature

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A Hylo-Idealistic Romance I WHEN Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his […]

Sonnet To Liberty

Story type: Poetry

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Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes See nothing save their own unlovely woe, Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,– But that the roar of thy Democracies, Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, Mirror my wildest passions like the sea And give my rage a brother–! Liberty! For this sake […]

Helas!

Story type: Literature

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To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay, Which do […]

I 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 […]

Flower of Love

Story type: Poetry

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Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day. From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song, Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled […]

Greece

Story type: Poetry

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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 […]

L’envoi

Story type: Essay

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An Introduction to Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf by Rennell Rodd, published by J. M. Stoddart and Co., Philadelphia, 1882. Amongst the many young men in England who are seeking along with me to continue and to perfect the English Renaissance–jeunes guerriers du drapeau romantique, as Gautier would have called us–there is none whose love […]

I. (Pall Mall Gazette, September 20, 1894.) To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. SIR,–Will you allow me to draw your attention to a very interesting example of the ethics of modern journalism, a quality of which we have all heard so much and seen so little? About a month ago Mr. T. P. […]

I. (Speaker, December 5, 1891.) SIR.–I have just purchased, at a price that for any other English sixpenny paper I would have considered exorbitant, a copy of the Speaker at one of the charming kiosks that decorate Paris; institutions, by the way, that I think we should at once introduce into London. The kiosk is […]

(Daily Telegraph, February 20, 1892.) To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph. SIR,–I have just been sent an article that seems to have appeared in your paper some days ago, {1} in which it is stated that, in the course of some remarks addressed to the Playgoers’ Club on the occasion of my taking the […]

(Times, September 26, 1891.) To the Editor of the Times. SIR,–The writer of a letter signed ‘An Indian Civilian’ that appears in your issue of today makes a statement about me which I beg you to allow me to correct at once. He says I have described the Anglo-Indians as being vulgar. This is not […]

I. MR. WILDE’S BAD CASE (St. James’s Gazette, June 26, 1890.) To the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette. SIR,–I have read your criticism of my story, The Picture of Dorian Gray; and I need hardly say that I do not propose to discuss its merits or demerits, its personalities or its lack of personality. […]

Written to Mr. Joaquin Miller in reply to a letter, dated February 9, 1882, in reference to the behaviour of a section of the audience at Wilde’s lecture on the English Renaissance at the Grand Opera House, Rochester, New York State, on February 7. It was first published in a volume called Decorative Art in […]

(Queen, December 8, 1888.) England has given to the world one great poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. By her side Mr. Swinburne would place Miss Christina Rossetti, whose New Year hymn he describes as so much the noblest of sacred poems in our language, that there is none which comes near it enough to stand second. […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 30, 1888.) Mr. Walter Crane, the President of the Society of Arts and Crafts, was greeted last night by such an enormous audience that at one time the honorary secretary became alarmed for the safety of the cartoons, and many people were unable to gain admission at all. However, order was […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 16, 1888.) Nothing could have been better than Mr. Emery Walker’s lecture on Letterpress Printing and Illustration, delivered last night at the Arts and Crafts. A series of most interesting specimens of old printed books and manuscripts was displayed on the screen by means of the magic-lantern, and Mr. Walker’s explanations […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 23, 1888.) ‘The beginning of art,’ said Mr. Cobden-Sanderson last night in his charming lecture on Bookbinding, ‘is man thinking about the universe.’ He desires to give expression to the joy and wonder that he feels at the marvels that surround him, and invents a form of beauty through which he […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 2, 1888.) Yesterday evening Mr. William Morris delivered a most interesting and fascinating lecture on Carpet and Tapestry Weaving at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition now held at the New Gallery. Mr. Morris had small practical models of the two looms used, the carpet loom where the weaver sits in front […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 9, 1888.) The most satisfactory thing in Mr. Simonds’ lecture last night was the peroration, in which he told the audience that ‘an artist cannot be made.’ But for this well-timed warning some deluded people might have gone away under the impression that sculpture was a sort of mechanical process within […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, December 12, 1887.) Last Saturday afternoon, at Willis’s Rooms, Mr. Selwyn Image delivered the first of a series of four lectures on Modern Art before a select and distinguished audience. The chief point on which he dwelt was the absolute unity of all the arts and, in order to convey this idea, […]

(Sunday Times, December 25, 1887.) Accepting a suggestion made by a friendly critic last week, Mr. Selwyn Image began his second lecture by explaining more fully what he meant by literary art, and pointed out the difference between an ordinary illustration to a book and such creative and original works as Michael Angelo’s fresco of […]

(Court and Society Review, March 23, 1887.) A terrible danger is hanging over the Americans in London. Their future and their reputation this season depend entirely on the success of Buffalo Bill and Mrs. Brown-Potter. The former is certain to draw; for English people are far more interested in American barbarism than they are in […]

(Century Guild Hobby Horse, July 1886.) During my tour in America I happened one evening to find myself in Louisville, Kentucky. The subject I had selected to speak on was the Mission of Art in the Nineteenth Century, and in the course of my lecture I had occasion to quote Keats’s Sonnet on Blue as […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 21, 1885.) Last night, at Prince’s Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvellous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind. Mr. Whistler began his lecture with a very pretty aria on […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 28, 1885.) ‘How can you possibly paint these ugly three-cornered hats?’ asked a reckless art critic once of Sir Joshua Reynolds. ‘I see light and shade in them,’ answered the artist. ‘Les grands coloristes,’ says Baudelaire, in a charming article on the artistic value of frock coats, ‘les grands coloristes savent […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 11, 1884.) I have been much interested at reading the large amount of correspondence that has been called forth by my recent lecture on Dress. It shows me that the subject of dress reform is one that is occupying many wise and charming people, who have at heart the principles of […]

Women’s Dress

Story type: Essay

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(Pall Mall Gazette, October 14, 1884.) Mr. Oscar Wilde, who asks us to permit him ‘that most charming of all pleasures, the pleasure of answering one’s critics,’ sends us the following remarks:– The ‘Girl Graduate’ must of course have precedence, not merely for her sex but for her sanity: her letter is extremely sensible. She […]

(New York World, November 7, 1882.) It is only in the best Greek gems, on the silver coins of Syracuse, or among the marble figures of the Parthenon frieze, that one can find the ideal representation of the marvellous beauty of that face which laughed through the leaves last night as Hester Grazebrook. Pure Greek […]

(Irish Monthly, July 1877.) As one enters Rome from the Via Ostiensis by the Porta San Paolo, the first object that meets the eye is a marble pyramid which stands close at hand on the left. There are many Egyptian obelisks in Rome–tall, snakelike spires of red sandstone, mottled with strange writings, which remind us […]

(Dublin University Magazine, July 1877.) That ‘Art is long and life is short’ is a truth which every one feels, or ought to feel; yet surely those who were in London last May, and had in one week the opportunities of hearing Rubenstein play the Sonata Impassionata, of seeing Wagner conduct the Spinning-Wheel Chorus from […]

Poems In Prose

Story type: Essay

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THE ARTIST ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of THE PLEASURE THAT ABIDETH FOR A MOMENT. And he went forth into the world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze. But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere in the […]

London Models

Story type: Essay

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PROFESSIONAL models are a purely modern invention. To the Greeks, for instance, they were quite unknown. Mr. Mahaffy, it is true, tells us that Pericles used to present peacocks to the great ladies of Athenian society in order to induce them to sit to his friend Phidias, and we know that Polygnotus introduced into his […]

IN the lecture which it is my privilege to deliver before you to- night I do not desire to give you any abstract definition of beauty at all. For we who are working in art cannot accept any theory of beauty in exchange for beauty itself, and, so far from desiring to isolate it in […]

PEOPLE often talk as if there was an opposition between what is beautiful and what is useful. There is no opposition to beauty except ugliness: all things are either beautiful or ugly, and utility will be always on the side of the beautiful thing, because beautiful decoration is always on the side of the beautiful […]

IN my last lecture I gave you something of the history of Art in England. I sought to trace the influence of the French Revolution upon its development. I said something of the song of Keats and the school of the pre-Raphaelites. But I do not want to shelter the movement, which I have called […]

AMONG the many debts which we owe to the supreme aesthetic faculty of Goethe is that he was the first to teach us to define beauty in terms the most concrete possible, to realise it, I mean, always in its special manifestations. So, in the lecture which I have the honour to deliver before you, […]

Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering. The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: A bird at evening flying to its nest Tells me of One who had no place of […]

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been; In the first days thy sword republican Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span: Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen, Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen; And now upon thy walls the breezes fan (Ah, city crowned by God, […]

Rome Unvisited

Story type: Poetry

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I. The corn has turned from grey to red, Since first my spirit wandered forth From the drear cities of the north, And to Italia’s mountains fled. And here I set my face towards home, For all my pilgrimage is done, Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun Marshals the way to Holy Rome. O Blessed Lady, […]

I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat, The oranges on each o’erhanging spray Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay: And the curved waves that streaked the great green […]

Italia

Story type: Poetry

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Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide! Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen Because rich gold in every town is seen, And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride Beneath one flag of […]

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see A scene of wondrous glory, as was told Of some great God who in a rain of gold Broke open bars and fell on Danae: Or a dread vision as when Semele Sickening for love and unappeased desire Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the […]

San Miniato

Story type: Poetry

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See, I have climbed the mountain side Up to this holy house of God, Where once that Angel-Painter trod Who saw the heavens opened wide, And throned upon the crescent moon The Virginal white Queen of Grace,– Mary! could I but see thy face Death could not come at all too soon. O crowned by […]

I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned, Italia, my Italia, at thy name: And when from out the mountain’s heart I came And saw the land for which my life had yearned, I laughed as one who some great prize had earned: And musing on the marvel of thy fame I watched the […]

Ravenna

Story type: Poetry

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(Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford June 26th, 1878. To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’ and ‘Mirage’) 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 […]

I O goat-foot God of Arcady! This modern world is grey and old, And what remains to us of thee? No more the shepherd lads in glee Throw apples at thy wattled fold, O goat-foot God of Arcady! Nor through the laurels can one see Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold, And what […]

Desespoir

Story type: Poetry

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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, And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow; Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again And this grey land grow green with […]

Roses And Rue

Story type: Poetry

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(To L. L.) Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love’s song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain! I remember we used to meet […]

Go, little book, To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: And bid him look Into thy pages: it may hap that he May find that golden maidens dance through thee.

I am weary of lying within the chaseWhen the knights are meeting in market-place. Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed townLest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down. But I would not go where the Squires ride,I would only walk by my Lady’s side. Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,A Forester’s son may […]

Her ivory hands on the ivory keysStrayed in a fitful fantasy,Like the silver gleam when the poplar treesRustle their pale-leaves listlessly,Or the drifting foam of a restless seaWhen the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. Her gold hair fell on the wall of goldLike the delicate gossamer tangles spunOn the burnished disk of […]

O singer of Persephone!In the dim meadows desolateDost thou remember Sicily? Still through the ivy flits the beeWhere Amaryllis lies in state;O Singer of Persephone! Simaetha calls on HecateAnd hears the wild dogs at the gate;Dost thou remember Sicily? Still by the light and laughing seaPoor Polypheme bemoans his fate;O Singer of Persephone! And still […]

Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:Taken from life when life and love were newThe youngest of the martyrs here is lain,Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,But gentle violets weeping with the dewWeave on his bones an ever-blossoming […]

To outer senses there is peace,A dreamy peace on either handDeep silence in the shadowy land,Deep silence where the shadows cease. Save for a cry that echoes shrillFrom some lone bird disconsolate;A corncrake calling to its mate;The answer from the misty hill. And suddenly the moon withdrawsHer sickle from the lightening skies,And to her sombre […]

Les Silhouettes

Story type: Poetry

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The sea is flecked with bars of grey,The dull dead wind is out of tune,And like a withered leaf the moonIs blown across the stormy bay. Etched clear upon the pallid sandLies the black boat: a sailor boyClambers aboard in careless joyWith laughing face and gleaming hand. And overhead the curlews cry,Where through the dusky […]

Charmides

Story type: Poetry

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I.He was a Grecian lad, who coming homeWith pulpy figs and wine from SicilyStood at his galley’s prow, and let the foamBlow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,And holding wave and wind in boy’s despitePeered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night. Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spearLike a […]

Chanson

Story type: Poetry

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A ring of gold and a milk-white doveAre goodly gifts for thee,And a hempen rope for your own loveTo hang upon a tree. For you a House of Ivory,(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!A narrow bed for me to lie,(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)! Myrtle and jessamine for you,(O the red rose is […]

My limbs are wasted with a flame,My feet are sore with travelling,For, calling on my Lady’s name,My lips have now forgot to sing. O Linnet in the wild-rose brakeStrain for my Love thy melody,O Lark sing louder for love’s sake,My gentle Lady passeth by. She is too fair for any manTo see or hold his […]

The apple trees are hung with gold,And birds are loud in Arcady,The sheep lie bleating in the fold,The wild goat runs across the wold,But yesterday his love he told,I know he will come back to me.O rising moon! O Lady moon!Be you my lover’s sentinel,You cannot choose but know him well,For he is shod with […]

The western wind is blowing fairAcross the dark AEgean sea,And at the secret marble stairMy Tyrian galley waits for thee.Come down! the purple sail is spread,The watchman sleeps within the town,O leave thy lily-flowered bed,O Lady mine come down, come down! She will not come, I know her well,Of lover’s vows she hath no care,And […]

Athanasia

Story type: Poetry

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To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naughtOf all the great things men have saved from Time,The withered body of a girl was broughtDead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime,And seen by lonely Arabs lying hidIn the dim womb of some black pyramid. But when they had unloosed the linen […]

Magdalen Walks

Story type: Poetry

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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 larchSways 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 […]

The Thames nocturne of blue and goldChanged to a Harmony in grey:A barge with ochre-coloured hayDropt from the wharf: and chill and cold The yellow fog came creeping downThe bridges, till the houses’ wallsSeemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’sLoomed like a bubble o’er the town. Then suddenly arose the clangOf waking life; the streets […]

This English Thames is holier far than Rome,Those harebells like a sudden flush of seaBreaking across the woodland, with the foamOf meadow-sweet and white anemoneTo fleck their blue waves,–God is likelier thereThan hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! Those violet-gleaming butterflies that takeYon creamy lily for their pavilionAre monsignores, and where the […]

The New Helen

Story type: Poetry

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Where hast thou been since round the walls of TroyThe sons of God fought in that great emprise?Why dost thou walk our common earth again?Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,His purple galley and his Tyrian menAnd treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes?For surely it was thou, who, like a starHung in the silver silence of the night,Didst […]

Madonna Mia

Story type: Poetry

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A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tearsLike bluest water seen through mists of rain:Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,Through whose wan marble […]

Vita Nuova

Story type: Poetry

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I stood by the unvintageable seaTill the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;The long red fires of the dying dayBurned in the west; the wind piped drearily;And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘my life is full of pain,And who can garner fruit or golden grainFrom these waste fields […]

E Tenebris

Story type: Poetry

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Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,For I am drowning in a stormier seaThan Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,My heart is as some famine-murdered landWhence all good things have perished utterly,And well I know my soul in Hell must lieIf I this night […]

Easter Day

Story type: Poetry

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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.Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:In splendour and in […]

I can write no stately proemAs a prelude to my lay;From a poet to a poemI would dare to say. For if of these fallen petalsOne to you seem fair,Love will waft it till it settlesOn your hair. And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand.

In The Forest

Story type: Poetry

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Out of the mid-wood’s twilightInto the meadow’s dawn,Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,Flashes my Faun! He skips through the copses singing,And his shadow dances along,And I know not which I should follow,Shadow or song! O Hunter, snare me his shadow!O Nightingale, catch me his strain!Else moonstruck with music and madnessI track him in vain!

An omnibus across the bridgeCrawls like a yellow butterfly,And, here and there, a passer-byShows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hayAre moored against the shadowy wharf,And, like a yellow silken scarf,The thick fog hangs along the quay. The yellow leaves begin to fadeAnd flutter from the Temple elms,And at my feet […]

Canzonet

Story type: Poetry

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I have no storeOf gryphon-guarded gold;Now, as before,Bare is the shepherd’s fold.Rubies nor pearlsHave I to gem thy throat;Yet woodland girlsHave loved the shepherd’s note. Then pluck a reedAnd bid me sing to thee,For I would feedThine ears with melody,Who art more fairThan fairest fleur-de-lys,More sweet and rareThan sweetest ambergris. What dost thou fear?Young Hyacinth […]

Les Ballons

Story type: Poetry

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Against these turbid turquoise skiesThe light and luminous balloonsDip and drift like satin moons,Drift like silken butterflies; Reel with every windy gust,Rise and reel like dancing girls,Float like strange transparent pearls,Fall and float like silver dust. Now to the low leaves they cling,Each with coy fantastic pose,Each a petal of a roseStraining at a gossamer […]

Le Panneau

Story type: Poetry

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Under the rose-tree’s dancing shadeThere stands a little ivory girl,Pulling the leaves of pink and pearlWith pale green nails of polished jade. The red leaves fall upon the mould,The white leaves flutter, one by one,Down to a blue bowl where the sun,Like a great dragon, writhes in gold. The white leaves float upon the air,The […]

The New Remorse

Story type: Poetry

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The sin was mine; I did not understand.So now is music prisoned in her cave,Save where some ebbing desultory waveFrets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.And in the withered hollow of this landHath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,That hardly can the leaden willow craveOne silver blossom from keen Winter’s hand. But who […]

These are the letters which Endymion wroteTo one he loved in secret, and apart.And now the brawlers of the auction martBargain and bid for each poor blotted note,Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quoteThe merchant’s price. I think they love not artWho break the crystal of a poet’s heartThat small and sickly eyes may […]

This winter air is keen and cold,And keen and cold this winter sun,But round my chair the children runLike little things of dancing gold. Sometimes about the painted kioskThe mimic soldiers strut and stride,Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hideIn the bleak tangles of the bosk. And sometimes, while the old nurse consHer book, they steal across […]

We caught the tread of dancing feet,We loitered down the moonlit street,And stopped beneath the harlot’s house. Inside, above the din and fray,We heard the loud musicians playThe ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss. Like strange mechanical grotesques,Making fantastic arabesques,The shadows raced across the blind. We watched the ghostly dancers spinTo sound of horn and violin,Like […]

Under The Balcony

Story type: Poetry

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O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!O moon with the brows of gold!Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south!And light for my love her way,Lest her little feet should strayOn the windy hill and the wold!O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!O moon with the brows of gold! O ship that shakes on the […]

La Mer

Story type: Poetry

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A white mist drifts across the shrouds,A wild moon in this wintry skyGleams like an angry lion’s eyeOut of a mane of tawny clouds. The muffled steersman at the wheelIs but a shadow in the gloom;–And in the throbbing engine-roomLeap the long rods of polished steel. The shattered storm has left its traceUpon this huge […]

Le Jardin

Story type: Poetry

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The lily’s withered chalice fallsAround its rod of dusty gold,And from the beech-trees on the woldThe last wood-pigeon coos and calls. The gaudy leonine sunflowerHangs black and barren on its stalk,And down the windy garden walkThe dead leaves scatter,–hour by hour. Pale privet-petals white as milkAre blown into a snowy mass:The roses lie upon the […]

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced] Thou knowest all; I seek in vainWhat lands to till or sow with seed–The land is black with briar and weed,Nor cares for falling tears or rain. Thou knowest all; I sit and waitWith blinded eyes and hands that fail,Till the last lifting of the veilAnd the first opening […]

Tristitiae

Story type: Poetry

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[Greek text which cannot be reproduced] O well for him who lives at easeWith garnered gold in wide domain,Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,The crashing down of forest trees. O well for him who ne’er hath knownThe travail of the hungry years,A father grey with grief and tears,A mother weeping all alone. But well […]

In the glad springtime when leaves were green,O merrily the throstle sings!I sought, amid the tangled sheen,Love whom mine eyes had never seen,O the glad dove has golden wings! Between the blossoms red and white,O merrily the throstle sings!My love first came into my sight,O perfect vision of delight,O the glad dove has golden wings! […]

Humanitad

Story type: Poetry

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It is full winter now: the trees are bare,Save where the cattle huddle from the coldBeneath the pine, for it doth never wearThe autumn’s gaudy livery whose goldHer jealous brother pilfers, but is trueTo the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hayLie on […]

Taedium Vitae

Story type: Poetry

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To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wearThis paltry age’s gaudy livery,To let each base hand filch my treasury,To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,–I swearI love it not! these things are less to meThan the thin foam that frets upon the sea,Less than the thistledown of summer […]

My Voice

Story type: Poetry

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Within this restless, hurried, modern worldWe 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. Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,For very weeping is my gladness fled,Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed. […]

Her Voice

Story type: Poetry

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The wild bee reels from bough to boughWith his furry coat and his gauzy wing,Now in a lily-cup, and nowSetting a jacinth bell a-swing,In his wandering;Sit closer love: it was here I trowI made that vow, Swore that two lives should be like oneAs long as the sea-gull loved the sea,As long as the sunflower […]

Silentium Amoris

Story type: Poetry

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As often-times the too resplendent sunHurries the pallid and reluctant moonBack to her sombre cave, ere she hath wonA single ballad from the nightingale,So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,And all my sweetest singing out of tune. And as at dawn across the level meadOn wings impetuous some wind will come,And with its […]

Quia Multum Amavi

Story type: Poetry

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Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priestWhen first he takes from out the hidden shrineHis God imprisoned in the Eucharist,And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine, Feels not such awful wonder as I feltWhen first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,And all night long before thy feet I kneltTill thou wert […]

Apologia

Story type: Poetry

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Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,And at thy pleasure weave that web of painWhose brightest threads are each a wasted day? Is it thy will–Love that I love so well–That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spotWherein, like evil paramours, must dwellThe quenchless […]

At Verona

Story type: Poetry

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How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses areFor exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,And O how salt and bitter is the breadWhich falls from this Hound’s table,–better farThat I had died in the red ways of war,Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,Than to live thus, by all things comradedWhich seek the essence […]

The sky is laced with fitful red,The circling mists and shadows flee,The dawn is rising from the sea,Like a white lady from her bed. And jagged brazen arrows fallAthwart the feathers of the night,And a long wave of yellow lightBreaks silently on tower and hall, And spreading wide across the woldWakes into flight some fluttering […]

Panthea

Story type: Poetry

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Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,From passionate pain to deadlier delight,–I am too young to live without desire,Too young art thou to waste this summer nightAsking those idle questions which of oldMan sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,And wisdom is […]

Camma

Story type: Poetry

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(To Ellen Terry) As one who poring on a Grecian urnScans 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 turnAnd face the obvious day, must I not yearnFor many a secret moon of indolent bliss,When in midmost shrine of ArtemisI see […]

(To Ellen Terry) In the lone tent, waiting for victory,She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalryTo her proud soul no common fear can bring:Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,Her soul a-flame […]

Portia

Story type: Poetry

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(To Ellen Terry) I marvel not Bassanio was so boldTo peril all he had upon the lead,Or that proud Aragon bent low his headOr that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:For in that gorgeous dress of beaten goldWhich is more golden than the golden sunNo woman Veronese looked uponWas half so fair as thou whom I […]

Phedre

Story type: Poetry

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(To Sarah Bernhardt) How vain and dull this common world must seemTo such a One as thou, who should’st have talkedAt Florence with Mirandola, or walkedThrough the cool olives of the Academe:Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green streamFor Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have playedWith the white girls in that Phaeacian gladeWhere grave […]

(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 […]

By The Arno

Story type: Poetry

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The oleander on the wallGrows crimson in the dawning light,Though the grey shadows of the nightLie yet on Florence like a pall. The dew is bright upon the hill,And bright the blossoms overhead,But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,The little Attic song is still. Only the leaves are gently stirredBy the soft breathing of the gale,And […]

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bedGaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,In the still chamber of yon pyramidSurely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. Ah! […]

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the skyBurned like a heated opal through the air;We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fairFor the blue lands that to the eastward lie.From the steep prow I marked with quickening eyeZakynthos, every olive grove and creek,Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.The flapping of […]

A Vision

Story type: Poetry

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Two crowned Kings, and One that stood aloneWith no green weight of laurels round his head,But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moanFor sins no bleating victim can atone,And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.Girt was he in a garment black and red,And at his feet I marked a […]

Santa Decca

Story type: Poetry

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The Gods are dead: no longer do we bringTo grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,For Pan is dead, and all the wantoningBy secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is […]

Oft have we trod the vales of CastalyAnd heard sweet notes of sylvan music blownFrom antique reeds to common folk unknown:And often launched our bark upon that seaWhich the nine Muses hold in empery,And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe homeTill we had freighted well our argosy.Of […]

Seven stars in the still water,And seven in the sky;Seven sins on the King’s daughter,Deep in her soul to lie. Red roses are at her feet,(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)And O where her bosom and girdle meetRed roses are hidden there. Fair is the knight who lieth slainAmid the rush and reed,See the […]

“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,” cried the young Student; “but in all my garden there is no red rose.” From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves, and wondered. “No red rose in all my garden!” […]

The Selfish Giant

Story type: Literature

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Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of […]

The Happy Prince

Story type: Literature

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High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt. He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” […]

The Remarkable Rocket

Story type: Literature

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The King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great […]

The Devoted Friend

Story type: Literature

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One morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole. He had bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long bit of black india-rubber. The little ducks were swimming about in the pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother, who was pure […]

CHAPTER I It was Lady Windermere’s last reception before Easter, and Bentinck House was even more crowded than usual. Six Cabinet Ministers had come on from the Speaker’s Levee in their stars and ribands, all the pretty women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of Carlsruhe, […]

One afternoon I was sitting outside the Cafe de la Paix, watching the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian life, and wondering over my vermouth at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was passing before me, when I heard some one call my name. I turned round, and saw Lord Murchison. We had not […]

The Model Millionaire

Story type: Literature

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Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie […]

CHAPTER I I had been dining with Erskine in his pretty little house in Birdcage Walk, and we were sitting in the library over our coffee and cigarettes, when the question of literary forgeries happened to turn up in conversation. I cannot at present remember how it was that we struck upon this somewhat curious […]

[TO MRS. WILLIAM H. GRENFELL OF TAPLOW COURT–LADY DESBOROUGH] It was the birthday of the Infanta. She was just twelve years of age, and the sun was shining brightly in the gardens of the palace. Although she was a real Princess and the Infanta of Spain, she had only one birthday every year, just like […]

The Young King

Story type: Literature

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[TO MARGARET LADY BROOKE–THE RANEE OF SARAWAK] It was the night before the day fixed for his coronation, and the young King was sitting alone in his beautiful chamber. His courtiers had all taken their leave of him, bowing their heads to the ground, according to the ceremonious usage of the day, and had retired […]

The Star-Child

Story type: Literature

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[TO MISS MARGOT TENNANT–MRS. ASQUITH] Once upon a time two poor Woodcutters were making their way home through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of […]

[TO H.S.H. ALICE, PRINCESS OF MONACO] Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water. When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was a bitter and black-winged wind, and rough waves rose up to meet it. But […]

The scene represents the corner of a valley in the Thebaid. On the right hand of the stage is a cavern. In front of the cavern stands a great crucifix. On the left [sand dunes]. The sky is blue like the inside of a cup of lapis lazuli. The hills are of red sand. Here […]

CHARACTERS: GUIDO BARDI, A Florentine princeSIMONE, a merchantBIANCA, his wife The action takes place at Florence in the early sixteenth century. [The door opens, they separate guiltily, and the husband enters.] SIMONE . My good wife, you come slowly; were it not betterTo run to meet your lord? Here, take my cloak.Take this pack first. […]

In many of the somewhat violent attacks that have recently been made on that splendour of mounting which now characterises our Shakespearian revivals in England, it seems to have been tacitly assumed by the critics that Shakespeare himself was more or less indifferent to the costumes of his actors, and that, could he see Mrs. […]

Louis Napoleon

Story type: Poetry

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Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wingsWhen 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 vanOf thy returning legions, but insteadThy mother France, free and republican, […]

To Milton

Story type: Literature

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Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed awayFrom these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of oursSeems fallen into ashes dull and grey,And the age changed unto a mimic playWherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:For all our pomp and pageantry and powersWe are but fit to delve the common clay,Seeing this little […]