The City of the Soul: II

Lord Alfred Douglas 1870 (Worcestershire) – 1945 (Lancing)



What shall we do, my soul, to please the King?
Seeing he hath no pleasure in the dance,
And hath condemned the honeyed utterance
Of silver flutes and mouths made round to sing.
Along the wall red roses climb and cling,
And oh! my prince, lift up thy countenance,
For there be thoughts like roses that entrance
More than the languors of soft lute-playing.

Think how the hidden things that poets see
In amber eves or mornings crystalline,
Hide in the soul their constant quenchless light,
Till, called by some celestial alchemy,
Out of forgotten depths, they rise and shine
Like buried treasure on Midsummer night.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

32 sec read
116

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBAABBA CDECDE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 620
Words 108
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6

Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. 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. more…

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