Selected Poems

by Oscar Wilde

There is no chapel on the day On which they hang a man:

I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.

every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And the sad world began,

And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity's machine.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal:

With all the flowers the dead love best.

The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth, And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth.