Page:Writings of Oscar Wilde - Volume 01.djvu/38

24 Till Atys with his blood-stained knife were
 * better than the thing I am.

False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx
 * old Charon, leaning on his oar,

Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave
 * me to my crucifix,

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches
 * the world with weary eyes,

And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps
 * for every soul in vain."

Just by the way in regard to "The Sphinx," though, as I said, it was not published till years after it was written, Wilde used to be fond of reciting it to his friends, in his wonderfully cadenced voice, a voice which I have been told made even publishers afraid to do business with him, so great was its charm. On one occasion after he had recited it, a friend asked him why he did not publish it? "No," he answered gravely, "it would destroy domesticity in England."

Like most poets with—or even without—beautiful voices, Wilde loved to say over and over again beautiful lines or phrases that had caught his fancy, anybody's lines or phrases,