Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16 October 1854 and died on 30 November 1900. To celebrate his birthday we are posting his great romantic poem, “The Grave of Shelley”, published in 1881.  Shelley died in 1822 aged 29. He was caught in a storm while in a boat off the coast of Italy and drowned. In this poem Wilde contemplates the sweet embrace of death. It is a very beautiful and very romantic poem. TH

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed

Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;

Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,

And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.

And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,

In the still chamber of yon pyramid

Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,

Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb

Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,

But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb

In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,

Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom

Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.