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[Poems by Wilde in] Richard Henry Wilde

His Life and Selected Poems

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[The future bard of Paradise in youth]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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[The future bard of Paradise in youth]

The future bard of Paradise in youth,
Wearied, some half hour on a moss bank slept,
And female beauty, innocence and truth,
Watch o'er his slumbers for an instant kept.

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He waked—and found—placed there while he reposed,
This sweet Ausonian couplet in his hand—
“Eyes! mortal stars, if thus ye wound me closed,
Open—who could your witchery withstand?”
The circles of their being touched no more—
He never saw her!—Though in after years,
Fair Italy received him on her shore
Aye! and baptised his genius with her tears!
Quenched were those eyes in darkness, want and strife,
He never saw her!—Yet our fancy deems,
To the last moment of his stormy life
A lovely vision haunted all his dreams.