Oscar Wilde was born on a day like today in 1854. Considered one of the most outstanding playwrights of Victorian London, he was also a great writer to whom we have dedicated several articles here. But the poetic facet of him is much less known. So, to recover it or discover it, there they go 4 poems of his work to remember it.
Oscar Wilde — 4 poems
Despair
The seasons shed their ruin as they pass,
For in the spring the daffodils raise their faces
Until the roses bloom in fiery flames;
And in the fall purple violets bloom
When the brittle crocus stirs up the winter snow,
But the decrepit young trees will be reborn,
And this gray earth will grow green with the summer dew,
And the children will run through an ocean of fragile primroses.
But what life, whose bitter greed
Tear our heels, watching over the sunless night,
Will it encourage the hope of those days that will no longer return?
Ambition, love, and all the feelings that burn
They die too soon, and we only find bliss
The withered remains of some dead memory.
under the balcony
O beautiful crimson-mouthed star!
O golden-browed moon!
They rise, they rise from the fragrant south!
They illuminate the path of my love,
So that her delicate feet do not stray
In the wind that runs down the hill.
O beautiful crimson-mouthed star!
O golden-browed moon!
O boat that stirs in the desolate sea!
O ship of wet, white sails!
Come back, come back to the port for me!
Well my love and I want to go
To the land where daffodils blow
Over the heart of a purple valley!
O boat that stirs in the desolate sea!
O ship of wet, white sails!
O fleeting bass bird, sweet notes!
O bird that rests in the dew!
Sing, sing with your soft voice in the void!
My love in her little bed
He will listen to you, he will lift his head from the pillow
And it will go my way!
O fleeting bass bird, sweet notes!
O bird that rests in the dew!
O flower that hangs in the tremulous air!
O flower of snowy lips!
Go down, go down to the hair of my love!
You must die on his head like a crown,
You must die in a fold of her clothes,
In the small brightness of his heart you have to rest!
O flower that hangs in the tremulous air!
O flower of snowy lips!
My voice
Within this restless, rushing, modern world,
We tear all the pleasure from our hearts, you and me.
Now the white sails of our ship wave steady,
But the time for boarding has passed.
My cheeks have withered before their time,
So much was the crying that joy has fled from me,
Pain has painted my lips white,
And Ruin dances on the curtains of my bed.
But all this tumultuous life has been for you
Not more than a lira, a mourning,
A subtle musical spell,
Or maybe the melody of a sleeping ocean,
The repetition of an echo.
death in life
The vilest actions, such as poisonous herbs,
they flourish well in the prison air:
it is only what is good in man
what is wasted and withers there:
pale anguish guards the heavy gate,
and the guardian is despair.
Because they starve the scared little boy
until he cries both day and night:
and flog the weak, flog the fool,
they mock the gray old man,
and some go crazy, and everything goes bad,
and no words can be said.
Every cramped cell we live in
It's a filthy dark latrine
and the fetid breath of living death
smothers every pinstripe suit,
and everything except lust turns to dust
in the machine of humanity.
Source: The Gothic Mirror