Requiescat

READ lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
 
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
 
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
 
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.
 
Peace, peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.

Other poems by Oscar Wilde

The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.

The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after ... The Sieve's basin, which flows into the Arno immediately before Florence ....

The oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.
 
The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.
 
Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.
 
The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.
 
Before across the silent lawn
In sea-green vest the morning steals,
And to love's frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn.
 
Fast climbing up the eastern sky
To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
All careless of my heart's delight,
Or if the nightingale should die.
HOW vain and dull this common world must seem    
  To such a One as thou, who should?st have talked    
  At Florence with Mirandola, or walked    
Through the cool olives of the Academe:    
Thou should?st have gathered reeds from a green stream            5
  For Goat-foot Pan?s shrill piping, and have played    
  With the white girls in that Ph�acian glade    
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.    
  
Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay    
  Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again     10
  Back to this common world so dull and vain,    
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,    
  The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,    
  The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

Ph�dre: or Phaedra, wife of Th�s�e, daughter of Minos and Pasipha�

Pan: Greek god of nature, wilderness, rustic music

Attica: A place in Greece

Wan - (vaaan) dull, pale color

Asphodel - flowers grown in elysium (heaven in greek mythorlogy)

Show images for: Alexendre Cabanel paintings