Oscar Wilde – A poet whose works I keep coming across while I scroll through my Instagram profile @so.by.ss and one that refuses to leave my mind without staying for a bit. Oscar Wilde has an interesting name and it is weird that none of my school English literature had any of his works. His wild ways are probably the reason behind it though and I’m glad I set out on this journey to learn about poets because it is truly enriching. He was a poet with a scandalous life and his poetry probably does not capture the level of controversy that his temporarily banned novel (I always believed authors with books that were banned were one of the finest creatures to have walked the Earth and experienced it to the fullest capacity) ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ had.
Coming right to poetry, below is a beautiful poem that is sensual in some ways and paints a pretty picture in the readers’ heads that was penned by the brilliant writer (notice the prettier title?):
La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente
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 brake
Strain for my Love thy melody,
O Lark sing louder for love’s sake,
My gentle Lady passeth by.
She is too fair for any man
To see or hold his heart’s delight,
Fairer than Queen or courtezan
Or moon-lit water in the night.
Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,
(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)
Green grasses through the yellow sheaves
Of autumn corn are not more fair.
Her little lips, more made to kiss
Than to cry bitterly for pain,
Are tremulous as brook-water is,
Or roses after evening rain.
Her neck is like white melilote
Flushing for pleasure of the sun,
The throbbing of the linnet’s throat
Is not so sweet to look upon.
As a pomegranate, cut in twain,
White-seeded, is her crimson mouth,
Her cheeks are as the fading stain
Where the peach reddens to the south.
O twining hands! O delicate
White body made for love and pain!
O House of love! O desolate
Pale flower beaten by the rain!
Death, mainly elegies, is a theme/style in Wilde’s poetry that I noticed in this journey of discovering the writer’s works. Wilde wrote a poem about P.B. Shelley, purely to show his affection for his writing although he was not even alive when the writer had been around.
The Grave of Shelley:
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed
Gaunt 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 pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
Similarly, he wrote about John Keats as well, after he visited the late poet’s grave and called it the ‘holiest place in Rome’. The admiration towards great poets who preceded him is something I find very commendable about Oscar Wilde.
The Grave of Keats:
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 new
The 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 dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
Even the excerpt quoted from the below poem ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’, a different picture of death is seen and something about his writing gets me instantly raptured:
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.
While the poem below is about his sister’s death and is hauntingly beautiful, especially when his feelings while writing such a piece are considered, I must also mention ‘Sonnet to Liberty’ which is a note-worthy piece which I have omitted from quoting here because I can’t cover all the brilliant poetic creations of this great writer.
Requiescat:
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.
Peace, peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
Oscar Wilde’s last words were reportedly “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.” This is enough to provide anyone a glimpse into his wild way of thinking and with that, I end this literary adoration of a genius poet who I wish I could meet (maybe I will get to experience a ‘Midnight in Paris’ movie moment of my own some day!).
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