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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OSCAR WILDE, by ELSA BARKER Poem Explanation Poet's Biography
First Line: Laureate of corruption, on whose brow
Subject(s): Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)
First Line: Laureate of corruption, on whose brow
Subject(s): Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)
LAUREATE of corruption, on whose brow
The bay-leaves are all slimy with the worm!
Thou art a nightingale whose songs affirm
The canker in the rosebud, from a bough
Of the dark cypress warbling.
Some strange vow
Thy spirit must have taken before birth
To some strange god, to desecrate the earth
With visions vile and beautiful as thou.
We loathe thee with the sure, instinctive dread
Of young things for the graveyard and the scar.
And though God wept when Lucifer's great star
With its long train cried from the deeps blood- red,
Still must we name thee with the second dead,
For when the angels fall they fall so far!
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Other Poems of Interest...
SONNET OF ADDRESSING OSCAR WILDE by ANNE CARSON
THE ARREST OF OSCAR WILDE AT THE CADOGAN HOTEL by JOHN BETJEMAN
THE DEAD POET by ALFRED BRUCE DOUGLAS
THE GOURMAND, SELECTION by HARRY GRAHAM
ARREST OF OSCAR WILDE AT THE CADOGAN HOTEL by JOHN BETJEMAN
ON LOVE: OSCAR WILDE by EDWARD HIRSCH
OH WHO IS THAT YOUNG SINNER WITH HANDCUFFS ON HIS WRIST by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN
HOMEMADE VOODOO by RODGER LEE KAMENETZ
METAMORPHOSES: 2. ORPHEUS (OSCAR WILDE) by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
A PRAYER FOR LOVE by ELSA BARKER