Alfred bruce douglas full#

And he came near me, with his lips uncurled And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth, And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend, Come I will show thee shadows of the world And images of life. And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across The garden came a youth one hand he raised To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes Were clear as crystal, naked all was he, White as the snow on pathless mountains frore, Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes A marble floor, his brow chalcedony. o'ergrown with velvet moss Uprose and gazing I stood long, all mazed To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair. And there were curious flowers, before unknown, Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades Of Nature's willful moods and here a one That had drunk in the transitory tone Of one brief moment in a sunset blades Of grass that in an hundred springs had been Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, And watered with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous air of Heaven.

There were pools that dreamed Black and unruffled there were white lilies A few, and crocuses, and violets Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun. Their music to the moon.I dreamed I stood upon a little hill, And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed Like a waste garden, flowering at its will With buds and blossoms. Of birds at noon-day, and no soft throats yield I know a green grass path that leaves the field, This is the joy that fills a cloudy night Of every flower that blows in every Spring, To fight with form, to wrestle and to rage, To eat sweet honey and to taste black gall, Wherein to keep wild thoughts like birds in thrall To find some cloistered place, some hermitage Out of forgotten depths, they rise and shine Hide in the soul their constant quenchless light, Think how the hidden things that poets see More than the languors of soft lute-playing. Of silver flutes and mouths made round to sing.Īlong the wall red roses climb and cling,Īnd oh! my prince, lift up thy countenance,įor there be thoughts like roses that entrance What shall we do, my soul, to please the King? Men creep like thoughts.The lamps are like pale flowers. I think they move! I hear her panting breath.Īnd that's her head where the tiara rests.Īnd in her brain, through lanes as dark as death, Pricked out with lamps they stand like huge black towers. That's the great town at night: I see her breasts, With thousands of bold eyes to heaven, and dares See! that huge circle like a necklace, stares Once, and once only, might have stood with these. When you met mercy's voice with frowns or jeers.Īnd did you ask who signed the plea with you?įools! It was signed already with the sign

That you yourselves, not he, were pitiable

Alfred bruce douglas full#

You that were full of fears,Īnd mean self-love, shall live to know full well Of song and art is powerless as the tears Opened for Tracian Orpheus, now the spell Zola, Copee, Sardou and others) who refused to compromise their spotless reputations or imperil their literary exclusiveness by signing a merciful petition in favour of Oscar Wilde.Ĭan open English prisons. 'Not all the singers of a thousand years' Sonnet, dedicated to those French men of letters (Messrs. (Compare Keats's sonnet When I Have Fears.) Till mean things put on beauty like a dressĪnd all the world was an enchanted place.Īnd then methought outside a fast locked gateĪnd voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds. I heard his golden voice and marked him trace I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face 'Not all the singers of a thousand years'.

(From Modern British Poetry by Louis Untermeyer.) The City of the Soul (1899) and Sonnets (1900) contain his most graceful writing. One of the minor poets of 'the eighteen-nineties,' several of his poems rise above his own affectations and the end-of-the-century decadence. He was the editor of The Academy from 1907 to 1910 and was at one time the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde. Lord Alfred Douglas was born in 1870 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945)