Poet · Victorian
Oscar Wilde
Irish poet · 1854–1900
Oscar Wilde conquered London with epigrams and comedies, then lost everything in the 1895 trials that sent him to prison for two years' hard labour. Out of that ruin came his greatest poem: The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), published not under his name but under his cell number, C.3.3.
The ballad, occasioned by the hanging of a fellow prisoner, gave English one of its darkest refrains: "each man kills the thing he loves." His short elegy "Requiescat," written for his sister Isola, who died at nine, shows the tenderness underneath all that wit: "Tread lightly, she is near."
He died in a Paris hotel at 46, bankrupt and exiled, three years after his release.
9 poems by Oscar Wilde
Full text, free to read — all in the public domain.
- Ballade De Marguerite (Normande)I am weary of lying within the chase…46 lines
- Easter DayThe silver trumpets rang across the Dome:…14 lines
- ENDYMION (For music)The apple trees are hung with gold,…42 lines
- From Spring Days To Winter (For Music)In the glad springtime when leaves were green,…22 lines
- Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the springSeven stars in the still water,…32 lines
- Roses And Rue(To L. L.)…69 lines
- Serenade (For Music)The western wind is blowing fair…40 lines
- To My Wife - With A Copy Of My PoemsI can write no stately proem…12 lines
- RequiescatTread lightly, she is near…21 lines