Phdre

Oscar Wilde

              How vain and dull this common world must seem
                To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked
                At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
              Through the cool olives of the Academe:
              Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream
                For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played
                With the white girls in that Phacian glade
              Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

              Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
                Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
                Back to this common world so dull and vain,
              For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
                The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
                The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

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