Selected Poems

by Oscar Wilde

God's kindly earth Is kindlier than men know,

every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame,

white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering.

And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed;

Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck their blue waves,