'The Garden Of Eros' by Oscar Wilde
AI and Tech Aggregator
Download Mp3s Free
Tears of the Kingdom Roleplay
Best Free University Courses Online
TOTK Roleplay
IT is full summer now, the heart of June,
Not yet the sun-burnt reapers are a-stir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.
Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,10
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messenger
The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,--ah! methinks it is a place
Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!20
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.
There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady's-smock,--but let them bloom alone, and leave30
Yon spired holly-hock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl
Their painted wings beside it,--bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go40
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.
The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno's throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,--pluck these, and those fond flowers which are
Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,50
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheræa's lips and make
Adonis jealous,--these for thy head,--and for thy girdle take
Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And fox-gloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer's bird,60
Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.
Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul's idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,70
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And vail its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.
And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.
And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,80
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.
And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfuly in war's abyss!90
And then I 'll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.
And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the Ægean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico100
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o'er the ruins of that fair and violet-cinctured town.
Spirit of Beauty! tarry still a-while,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries,
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few.
Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being, I at least110
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.
Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.120
Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre, none can play
The lute of Adonais, with his lips Song passed away.
Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea130
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,
And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot140
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tuskéd boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.
And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilæan's requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.150
Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight--
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,
Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child,
Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,160
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly paradise.
We know them all, Gudrun the strong men's bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,
Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose170
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car--how oft, in some cool grassy field
Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,180
And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm's red ruin, for the singer is divine,
The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old190
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.
Spirit of Beauty tarry yet a-while!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blind-worm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!
For One at least there is,--He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,--200
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,
Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;--such is the empery210
Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.
But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows--how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,220
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naïad shows her head.
Methinks these new Actæons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analyzed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!
What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue230
Of modern miracles! Can it assuage
One lover's breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More god-like in its period? but now the Age of Clay
Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus, to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must240
Repair for judgment, let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.
Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out: I did not note250
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time's palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!--
Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl's white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which 'gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.
Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,260
The corn-crake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,
Scatters the pearléd dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east, see, the red rim
O'ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him270
Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,--
Ah! there is something more in that bird's flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!--
But the air freshens, let us go,--why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
Editor 1 Interpretation
The Garden of Eros: A Masterpiece of Sensual Symbolism
Oscar Wilde's poems are known for their sensuality, their beauty, and their deep philosophical insights. "The Garden of Eros" is no exception. In this poem, Wilde creates a richly symbolic world that explores the themes of love, desire, and the fleeting nature of beauty. The poem is a masterpiece of poetic form, using rich language, intricate imagery, and a complex structure to create a work of art that is both beautiful and profound.
A Sensual Garden of Desire
The poem begins by describing a beautiful garden, full of flowers, birds, and bees. The language is lush and sensual, using rich imagery to create a world that is both beautiful and erotic. The garden is a symbol for the world of desire, a place where passion and sensuality reign supreme.
One of the most striking things about the poem is its use of color. The flowers are described in vivid detail, with their various hues and shades evoking different emotions and sensations. For example, the roses are "red as the stains of fruit" and the lilies are "white as the foam of the sea." Each color is imbued with a specific meaning, adding depth and complexity to the poem.
The garden is also full of animals and insects, all of which are imbued with symbolic meaning. The bees are a symbol of desire, buzzing around the flowers and spreading their pollen. The birds are a symbol of freedom, soaring through the sky and singing their songs of love. Together, these elements create a richly sensual world that is both beautiful and intense.
The Allure of Love
The poem is, at its core, a meditation on the nature of love. Wilde explores the various forms of love, from the fleeting passion of youthful desire to the enduring love that transcends time and death. He does so by weaving together a series of images and metaphors that create a complex and nuanced portrait of this most elusive of emotions.
One of the most powerful images in the poem is that of the "red-rose pulses" that beat in the hearts of the lovers. This image captures the intensity of youthful desire, the way that love can consume us entirely and leave us breathless and enraptured. The rose is a symbol of beauty and passion, and its beating pulse is a reminder of the power of love to move us in profound ways.
At the same time, Wilde also explores the darker side of love, its transience and its fragility. He notes that "the red rose fades from the rose-tree" and that "the lilies wither in the field." These lines are a reminder that even the most beautiful and passionate of loves is ultimately fleeting, subject to the ravages of time and mortality.
The Symbolic Structure of the Poem
One of the most striking things about "The Garden of Eros" is its complex structure. The poem is divided into three sections, each of which explores a different aspect of love. The first section is focused on the physicality of love, its sensuality and its beauty. The second section is focused on the transience of love, its fleeting nature and its eventual demise. The third section is focused on the endurance of love, its ability to transcend time and death.
Each section is composed of a series of stanzas, each of which is organized around a specific metaphor or image. For example, the first section is organized around the image of the garden, with each stanza exploring a different aspect of this symbolic world. The second section is organized around the image of the "white feet of the dawn," with each stanza exploring a different aspect of the passage of time and the transience of beauty.
This complex structure allows Wilde to explore the themes of the poem in a nuanced and layered way. By weaving together a series of images and metaphors, he creates a work of art that is both beautiful and profound.
Conclusion
"The Garden of Eros" is a masterpiece of sensual symbolism. It explores the themes of love, desire, and the fleeting nature of beauty in a richly symbolic world that is both beautiful and intense. The poem is a testament to Wilde's poetic genius, showcasing his mastery of language, imagery, and form. It is a work of art that rewards close reading and interpretation, inviting us to explore its depths and unravel its mysteries.
Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation
The Garden of Eros: A Masterpiece of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde, the renowned Irish poet, playwright, and novelist, is known for his wit, humor, and satire. However, his poem "The Garden of Eros" is a departure from his usual style and tone. It is a beautiful and poignant piece of poetry that explores the themes of love, beauty, and mortality. In this article, we will analyze and explain the poem in detail.
The poem is divided into three stanzas, each consisting of four lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, and the meter is iambic tetrameter. The poem begins with the speaker describing a garden of love, where the flowers are in full bloom, and the air is filled with the scent of roses. The garden is a metaphor for the world of love, where everything is beautiful and perfect.
In the second stanza, the speaker introduces the character of Eros, the Greek god of love. Eros is depicted as a young and beautiful boy, who is the ruler of the garden. He is surrounded by his followers, who are also young and beautiful. The speaker describes Eros as "the lord of life and death," which suggests that love has the power to give life and take it away.
The third stanza is the most poignant and powerful of the poem. The speaker describes how the flowers in the garden wither and die, and how Eros and his followers disappear. The garden is now empty and silent, and the speaker is left alone. The final lines of the poem are haunting and beautiful: "And all my heart is aching, / And tears of love are falling fast."
The poem is a meditation on the transience of love and beauty. The garden of love, with its beautiful flowers and young followers, is a metaphor for youth and beauty. However, just as the flowers wither and die, so too does youth and beauty fade away. Eros, the god of love, is also subject to the same fate. The poem suggests that love is not eternal, but rather, it is fleeting and ephemeral.
The poem also explores the theme of mortality. The speaker describes how the flowers in the garden wither and die, and how Eros and his followers disappear. This is a reminder that everything in life is temporary, and that death is inevitable. The final lines of the poem, "And all my heart is aching, / And tears of love are falling fast," suggest that the speaker is mourning the loss of love and beauty, but also the inevitability of death.
The poem is also notable for its use of imagery and symbolism. The garden of love is a powerful symbol for the world of love, where everything is beautiful and perfect. The flowers in the garden represent youth and beauty, while Eros and his followers represent the power of love. The image of the flowers withering and dying is a powerful symbol for the transience of youth and beauty, while the disappearance of Eros and his followers is a symbol for the fleeting nature of love.
In conclusion, "The Garden of Eros" is a beautiful and poignant poem that explores the themes of love, beauty, and mortality. The poem is a meditation on the transience of love and beauty, and a reminder that everything in life is temporary. The poem is also notable for its use of imagery and symbolism, which adds depth and meaning to the poem. Overall, "The Garden of Eros" is a masterpiece of Oscar Wilde, and a testament to his skill as a poet.
Editor Recommended Sites
Smart Contract Technology: Blockchain smart contract tutorials and guidesErlang Cloud: Erlang in the cloud through elixir livebooks and erlang release management tools
ML Management: Machine learning operations tutorials
Learn Javascript: Learn to program in the javascript programming language, typescript, learn react
Learn webgpu: Learn webgpu programming for 3d graphics on the browser
Recommended Similar Analysis
They Were Welcome To Their Belief by Robert Frost analysisPresence Of Love, The by Samuel Taylor Coleridge analysis
Jaws by Carl Sandburg analysis
A Little Budding Rose by Emily Jane Brontë analysis
NO PAINS, NO GAINS by Robert Herrick analysis
She sweeps with many-colored brooms, by Emily Dickinson analysis
Little Boy Lost, The by William Blake analysis
The Indifferent by John Donne analysis
Spring Pools by Robert Frost analysis
What Best I See In Thee by Walt Whitman analysis