Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/218



stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear

This paltry age's gaudy livery,

To let each base hand filch my treasury,

To mesh my soul within a woman's hair,

And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom,—I swear

I love it not! these things are less to me

Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,

Less than the thistledown of summer air

Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof

Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life

Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof

Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,

Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife

Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin. 204