Helas!
1854.10.16-1900.11.30
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance -
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
DayPoems Poem No. 2701
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2701.html">Helas! by Oscar Wilde</a>
The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
Poets Poems