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In this poem, which is a prime example of the luxurious indulgence of Decadent poetry, the narrator encounters the mysterious sphinx (‘half woman and half animal’: the sphinx being a cross between a woman and a cat) and, essentially, asks her some very personal questions about the lovers she’s had over the centuries.Ī fine example of fin de siècle decadence, and one of Wilde’s most intriguing poems.

Wilde wrote on a number of occasions about sphinxes, with one of his characters describing women, memorably, as ‘sphinxes without secrets’. In a dim corner of my room for longer thanĪ beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me This poem, which addresses Persephone from the world of mythology, may not be the finest example of a villanelle, but it shows Wilde’s virtuosity in verse as well as, perhaps, highlighting the limits of his own verse. Wilde didn’t write hundreds of poems, but among the small number he did write we find sonnets, ballads, narrative poems, elegies, and many others – including this attempt at the restrictive and challenging form of the villanelle. In a separate post, we’ve compiled some of the best villanelles written in English, but we didn’t include this Wilde poem on the list. Those who accompanied him to the suite of rooms set apart for his service, often spoke of the cry of pleasure that broke from his lips when he saw the delicate raiment and rich jewels that had been prepared for him, and of the almost fierce joy with which he flung aside his rough leathern tunic and coarse sheepskin cloak.So begins this poem, an example of the villanelle form. Certain it was that the old King, when on his deathbed, whether moved by remorse for his great sin, or merely desiring that the kingdom should not pass away from his line, had had the lad sent for, and, in the presence of the Council, had acknowledged him as his heir.Īnd it seems that from the very first moment of his recognition he had shown signs of that strange passion for beauty that was destined to have so great an influence over his life. Such, at least, was the story that men whispered to each other. Grief, or the plague, as the court physician stated, or, as some suggested, a swift Italian poison administered in a cup of spiced wine, slew, within an hour of her wakening, the white girl who had given him birth, and as the trusty messenger who bare the child across his saddle-bow stooped from his weary horse and knocked at the rude door of the goatherd’s hut, the body of the Princess was being lowered into an open grave that had been dug in a deserted churchyard, beyond the city gates, a grave where it was said that another body was also lying, that of a young man of marvellous and foreign beauty, whose hands were tied behind him with a knotted cord, and whose breast was stabbed with many red wounds. The child of the old King’s only daughter by a secret marriage with one much beneath her in station - a stranger, some said, who, by the wonderful magic of his lute-playing, had made the young Princess love him while others spoke of an artist from Rimini, to whom the Princess had shown much, perhaps too much honour, and who had suddenly disappeared from the city, leaving his work in the Cathedral unfinished - he had been, when but a week old, stolen away from his mother’s side, as she slept, and given into the charge of a common peasant and his wife, who were without children of their own, and lived in a remote part of the forest, more than a day’s ride from the town.

The lad - for he was only a lad, being but sixteen years of age - was not sorry at their departure, and had flung himself back with a deep sigh of relief on the soft cushions of his embroidered couch, lying there, wild-eyed and open-mouthed, like a brown woodland Faun, or some young animal of the forest newly snared by the hunters.Īnd, indeed, it was the hunters who had found him, coming upon him almost by chance as, bare-limbed and pipe in hand, he was following the flock of the poor goatherd who had brought him up, and whose son he had always fancied himself to be.

His courtiers had all taken their leave of him, bowing their heads to the ground, according to the ceremonious usage of the day, and had retired to the Great Hall of the Palace, to receive a few last lessons from the Professor of Etiquette there being some of them who had still quite natural manners, which in a courtier is, I need hardly say, a very grave offence. It was the night before the day fixed for his coronation, and the young King was sitting alone in his beautiful chamber.