The Poems of Oscar Wilde (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... THE SPHINX TO MARCEL SCHTVOB IN FRIENDSHIP AND IN ADMIRATION. THE SPHINX is the copyright of Mr. John Lane, by whose courtesy it is included in this edition. THE SPHINX IN a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom. Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that reel. Red follows grey across the air the waves of moonlight ebb and flow But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there. Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold. Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat of her Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her pointed ears. Come forth, my lovely seneschal so somnolent, so statuesque Come forth you exquisite grotesque half woman and half animal Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx and put your head upon my knee And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and grasp The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws ATHOUSAND weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's gaudy liveries. But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks, And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs. O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt? And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend her head in mimic awe To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from the brine? And did you...