Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). Poems. 1881.

1. Helas

TO drift with every passion till my soul

Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?—

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

With idle songs for pipe and virelay

Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

Is that tine dead? lo! with a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance—

And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?