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Magdalen Walks

Fairytales

The Devoted Friend

The Happy Prince

The Nightingale and the Rose

The Remarkable Rocket

The Selfish Giant


Poetry

Ave Imperatrix

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Fabien Dei Franchi

Flower of Love

From 'The Burden Of Itys'

From 'The Garden Of Eros'

Greece

Libertatis Sacra Fames

Madonna Mia

Magdalen Walks

On The Massacre Of The Christians In Bulgaria

Phedre

Portia

Roses And Rue

Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

The Grave Of Shelley

The Harlot's House

Theocritus - A Villanelle

To My Wife - With A Copy Of My Poems







Magdalen Walks



[After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity
College, Dublin, in 1874, Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford, where he
obtained a demyship at Magdalen College. He is the only real poet
on the books of that institution.]


The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.





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