The writings of Oscar Wilde Author:Oscar Wilde Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: "I was told she was his sweetheart. They were on the eve of marriage. She was quiet as a statue, But her lip was gray and writhen." In this poem, the rhythm ... more »and the music, such as it is, are obvious—perhaps a little too ohvious. In the following I see nothing but ingeniously printed prose. It is a description—and a very accurate one—of a scene in a hospital ward. The medical students are supposed to be crowding round the doctor. What I quote is only a fragment, but the poem itself is a fragment:— "So shows the ring Seen, from behind, round a conjuror Doing his pitch in the street. High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones, Eound, square, and angular, serry and shove; While from within a voice, Gravely and weightily fluent, Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly (Look at the stress of the shoulders!) Out of a quiver of silence, Over the hiss of the spray, chapter{Section 4Comes a low cry, and the sound Of breath quick intaken through teeth Clenched in resolve. And the master Breaks from the crowd, and goes, Wiping his hands, To the next bed, with his pupils Flocking and whispering behind him. "Now one can see. Case Number One Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes Stripped up, and showing his foot (Alas, for God's image!) Swaddled in wet white lint Brilliantly hideous with red." Theophile Gautier once said that Flaubert's style was meant to be read, and his own style to be looked at. Mr. Henley's unrhymed rhythms form, very dainty designs, from a typographical point of view. From the point of view of literature, they are a series of vivid, concentrated impressions, with a keen grip of fact, a terrible actuality, and an almost masterly power of picturesque presentation. But the poetic form—what of that? chapter{Secti...« less