(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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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, […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]