Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Name: Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Author: Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

Pages: about 133
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 2.5 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 81 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

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.
SET in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide?
The earth, a brittle globe of glass, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land,
The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of fight, And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night.
The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail of screaming shell.
The strong sea-lion of England’s wars Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, To battle with the storm that mars The stars of England’s chivalry.
The brazen-throated clarion blows Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, And the high steeps of Indian snows Shake to the tread of armèd men.
And many an Afghan chief, who lies Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise When on the mountain-side he sees
The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes To tell how he hath heard afar The measured roll of English drums Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

A short sample. Read the whole book

Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol

From the opening

More to read