"My love is as fair as a lily flower.
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
Her face is as wan as the water white.
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
Alack! she heedeth it never at all.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
The China plate it is pure on the wall.
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
With languorous loving and purple pain.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
And woe is me that I never may win;
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)"
Among the sonnets written at this period the one on Keats's grave in which he does homage to him whom he reverenced as a master is especially felicitous in its ending—
"Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green
As Isabella did her Basil-tree."
Than the graceful introducing of Keats's poem no more delicate epitaph could be well imagined. Shelley's last resting-place likewise inspired his pen and there is an "Impression de Voyage" written at Katakolo at the period of his visit to Greece in company with Professor Mahaffy, the concluding line of which, "I stood upon the soil of Greece at last," conveys more by its reticence than could be expressed in volumes.
Of his five theatrical sonnets headed "Impressions de Theatre," one is addressed to the late Sir Henry Irving and the three others to Miss Ellen Terry. It is curious that of the three Shakespearean characters he mentioned as worthier of the actor's great talents than Fabiendei Franchi—viz. Lear, Romeo, and Richard III.,—the only one that Irving ever played was Romeo, and in that part he was a decided failure, which, considering his peculiar mannerisms and method, as well as his age at the time, was not to be wondered at. The fifth was probably intended for Madame Sarah Bernhardt, whose wonderful rendering of Phèdre could not fail to deeply impress so cultured a critic as the author of these poems.
In "Panthea" Oscar Wilde gives rein to his amorous fancy, and, inspired by the poets of Greece and Rome, peoples the world with gods and goddesses who mourn the old glad pagan days—
"Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again
Kissing each other's mouths, and mix more deep
The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep."