12/3/2023 0 Comments Alfred bruce douglasMore than the languors of soft lute-playing. Of silver flutes and mouths made round to sing.Īlong the wall red roses climb and cling,Īnd oh! my prince, lift up thy countenance,įor there be thoughts like roses that entrance What shall we do, my soul, to please the King? Men creep like thoughts.The lamps are like pale flowers. I think they move! I hear her panting breath.Īnd that's her head where the tiara rests.Īnd in her brain, through lanes as dark as death, Pricked out with lamps they stand like huge black towers. That's the great town at night: I see her breasts, With thousands of bold eyes to heaven, and dares Much of his early poetry was Uranian in theme, though he tended, later in life, to distance himself from both Wilde's influence and his own role as a Uranian poet. See! that huge circle like a necklace, stares Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas was an British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Once, and once only, might have stood with these. ![]() When you met mercy's voice with frowns or jeers.Īnd did you ask who signed the plea with you?įools! It was signed already with the sign That you yourselves, not he, were pitiable You that were full of fears,Īnd mean self-love, shall live to know full well Of song and art is powerless as the tears Opened for Tracian Orpheus, now the spell Zola, Copee, Sardou and others) who refused to compromise their spotless reputations or imperil their literary exclusiveness by signing a merciful petition in favour of Oscar Wilde.Ĭan open English prisons. "Not all the singers of a thousand years" Sonnet, dedicated to those French men of letters (Messrs. (Compare Keats's sonnet When I Have Fears.) Till mean things put on beauty like a dressĪnd all the world was an enchanted place.Īnd then methought outside a fast locked gateĪnd voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds. I heard his golden voice and marked him trace ![]() I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face "Not all the singers of a thousand years".(From Modern British Poetry by Louis Untermeyer.) The City of the Soul (1899) and Sonnets (1900) contain his most graceful writing. One of the minor poets of "the eighteen-nineties," several of his poems rise above his own affectations and the end-of-the-century decadence. ![]() He was the editor of The Academy from 1907 to 1910 and was at one time the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde. Lord Alfred Douglas was born in 1870 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. A few years later, Wilde died, alone and flat broke.Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945) ![]() But when Douglas' family threatened to cut off his allowance if he remained with Wilde, he left. The letter is both the story of Wilde and Douglas' relationship and a merciless takedown of Douglas' character and behavior.īosie didn't see that letter for decades, however, and in an incredible twist, The Guardian reports the two men reunited after Wilde's release, living together in Naples. As the encyclopedia Britannica reports, Wilde composed his last major literary work, the searing love letter-cum-revenge note "De Profundis" ("Out of the Depths") during his imprisonment. Famous Trials notes that testimony from Douglas very likely would not have saved Wilde, but the way Douglas abandoned him cut Wilde deeply. As The Guardian notes, Lord Alfred failed to make an appearance at Wilde's trial to defend him, and generally kept his distance. In short, Bosie got Wilde into his mess, made it worse, and then did nothing to help.īut what might have been the worst part of it for Wilde was the fact that his lover had betrayed him. That was a huge mistake, as it forced the Marquess to publicly prove his accusations - which was pretty easy because, as The Guardian relates, Bosie had left incriminating letters in the pockets of suits he'd given Wilde, and because Bosie refused to testify in Wilde's defense. He could have fled and waited for the storm to blow over, but Bosie urged him to go on the offensive, and so Wilde sued the Marquess for libel. When Bosie's powerful and deeply conservative father the Marquess of Queensberry, lost patience, he went to Wilde's club and left a card for him that read, "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite ," essentially outing Wilde for all to see at a time when being gay was very dangerous. Besides introducing Wilde to the underground world of gay prostitutes, the two engaged in a loud and impossible-to-ignore gay relationship that soon had tongues wagging. Wilde's affair with Bosie changed everything.
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