Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

ROBERT ROSS

Reform Club,
April 5, 1911.

CONTENTS

		PAGE
Preface		[v]
The Ballad of ReadingGaol (Complete Version)		[1]
The Ballad of ReadingGaol (Shorter Version)		[61]
Ave Imperatrix		[89]
To My Wife (with a copy ofmy poems)		[100]
Magdalen Walks		[102]
Theocritus—aVillanelle		[106]
Sonnets—
	Greece	[108]
	Portia (to Ellen Terry)	[110]
	Fabien Dei Franchi (to HenryIrving)	[112]
	Phèdre (to SarahBernhardt)	[114]
	On Hearing The Dies Iræ SungIn The Sistine Chapel	[116]
	Ave Maria Gratia Plena	[118]
	Libertatis Sacra Fames	[120]
	Roses and Rue	[122]
	From ‘The Garden ofEros’	[128]
	The Harlot’s House	[140]
	From ‘The Burden ofItys’	[144]
	Flower of Love	[158]

NOTE

At the end of the complete text will be found a shorter version based on the original draft of the poem. This is included for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary executor, by falling back on a text which represents the author’s first scheme for a poem—never intended of course for recitation.

ROBERT ROSS

IN MEMORIAM
C. T. W.
Sometimes trooper of
The Royal Horse Guards
Obiit H.M. Prison
Reading, Berkshire
July 7th, 1896

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

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