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[Poems by Wilde in] Richard Henry Wilde

His Life and Selected Poems

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[I have deceived myself! ... the dream was sweet]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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[I have deceived myself! ... the dream was sweet]

I have deceived myself! ... the dream was sweet
And bitter the awaking—Let me call
My spirit up, it's destiny to meet
Triumph may hail, but shall not mock my fall!
Conquered, but not subdued—I scorn to yield
Betrayed, but yet unmoved—with steady eye
I gaze in silence on my last lost field,
With neither wish to live nor fear to die.
From my proud hopes of high dominion hurled
My transient reign of Love and Glory o'er
Dethroned—Exiled—from what I thought my world,
The Empire of the Heart exists no more!
What then is left? to bend beneath the shock
Tire Heaven with prayers and be of Hell the jest?
No! welcome first the vulture and the rock!
Prometheus-like in this, as in the rest.
I strove with Heaven for Heaven—the strife was vain—
The fire I stole consumes me—let it burn!—
No tyrant shall wring pleasure from my pain
Scorn yields such wrong it's only just return!