Poeticous Logo
en
English Español Français Italiano
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Sonnet to Liberty

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 only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

#1897 #IrishWriters #TheBalladOfReadingGaol #Victorian

1
Liked or faved by...
Bruno G.
Other works by Oscar Wilde...
From Spring Days to Winter

In the glad springtime when leaves… 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!
 1
Charmides

He was a Grecian lad, who coming… With pulpy figs and wine from Sic… Stood at his galley’s prow, and le… Blow through his crisp brown curls… And holding wave and wind in boy’s…
 1
Desespoir

The seasons send their ruin as the… For in the spring the narciss show… Nor withers till the rose has flam… And in the autumn purple violets b… And the slim crocus stirs the wint…
 1
The New Helen

Where hast thou been since round t… The sons of God fought in that gr… Why dost thou walk our common eart… Hast thou forgotten that impassion… His purple galley, and his Tyrian…
 1
Roses and Rue

Could we dig up this long—buried t… Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love’s song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past that is…
 2
Helas!

To drift with every passion till m… Is as a stringed lute on which all… Is it for this that I have given… Mine ancient wisdom and austere co… Methinks my life is a twice—writte…
Written at the Lyceum Theatre I: Portia

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold To peril all he had upon the lead, Or that proud Aragon bent low his… Or that Morocco’s fiery heart gre… For in that gorgeous dress of beat…
 1
Le Jardin Des Tuileries

This winter air is keen and cold, And keen and cold this winter sun, But round my chair the children ru… Like little things of dancing gold… Sometimes about the painted kiosk
 1
Easter Day

The silver trumpets rang across th… The people knelt upon the ground w… And borne upon the necks of men I… Like some great God, the Holy Lo… Priest—like, he wore a robe more w…
 2
Impressions II: La Mer

A white mist drifts across the shr… A wild moon in this wintry sky Gleams like an angry lion’s eye Out of a mane of tawny clouds. The muffled steersman at the wheel
 1
The Teacher of Wisdom

From his childhood he had been as… knowledge of God, and even while h… saints, as well as certain holy wo… his birth, had been stirred to muc… his answers.
 1
Chanson

A ring of gold and a milk—white do… Are goodly gifts for thee, And a hempen rope for your own lov… To hang upon a tree. For you a House of Ivory
 1
The Harlot's House

We caught the tread of dancing fee… We loitered down the moonlit stree… And stopped beneath the harlot’s h… Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play
Taedium Vitae

To stab my youth with desperate kn… This paltry age’s gaudy livery, To let each base hand filch my tre… To mesh my soul within a woman’s h… And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed gr…
 1
Symphony in Yellow

An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly, And, here and therem a passer—by Shows like a little restless midge… Big barges full of yellow hay
 1



Top