The True Knowledge

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

Thou knowest all; I seek in vain
What lands to till or sow with seed
The land is black with briar and weed,
Nor cares for falling tears or rain.

Thou knowest all; I sit and wait
With blinded eyes and hands that fail,
Till the last lifting of the veil
And the first opening of the gate.

Thou knowest all; I cannot see.
I trust I shall not live in vain,
I know that we shall meet again
In some divine eternity.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Simple Poetry

Greece

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Simple Poetry

Poem: Louis Napoleon

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Simple Poetry

Le Jardin Des Tuileries

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Simple Poetry

English

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Tristitiae

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.

O well for him who ne'er hath known
The travail of the hungry years,
A father grey with grief and tears,
A mother weeping all alone.

But well for him whose foot hath trod
The weary road of toil and strife,
Yet from the sorrows of his life.
Builds ladders to be nearer God.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Athanasia

To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian's body, lo! was found
Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand
A little seed, which sown in English ground
Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear
And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.

With such strange arts this flower did allure
That all forgotten was the asphodel,
And the brown bee, the lily's paramour,
Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell,
For not a thing of earth it seemed to be,
But st...

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

After Thomas Kempis

    I.

    Who follows Jesus shall not walk
    In darksome road with danger rife;
    But in his heart the Truth will talk,
    And on his way will shine the Life.

    So, on the story we must pore
    Of him who lives for us, and died,
    That we may see him walk before,
    And know the Father in the guide.


    II.

    In words of truth Christ all excels,
    Leaves all his holy ones behind;
    And he in whom his spirit dwells
    Their hidden manna sure shall find.

    Gather wouldst thou the perfect grains,
    And Jesus fully understand?
    Thou must obey him with huge pains,
    And to God's will be as Christ's hand.


    III.

    What profits it to reason high
    And in hard q...

George MacDonald

Knowledge

Would you believe in Presences Unseen -
    In life beyond this earthly life?
BE STILL:    Be stiller yet; and listen.    Set the screen
    Of silence at the portal of your will.
Relax, and let the world go by unheard.
And seal your lips with some all-sacred word.

Breathe 'God,' in any tongue - it means the same;
    LOVE ABSOLUTE:    Think, feel, absorb the thought;
Shut out all else; until a subtle flame
    (A spark from God's creative centre caught)
Shall permeate your being, and shall glow,
Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW.

Not in a moment, or an hour, or day
    The knowledge comes; the power is far too great,
To win in any desultory way.
    No soul is worthy till it learns to wait.
Day after day be patient, then, oh, soul;
...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

E Tenebris

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Apologia

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the ...

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde