Vita Nuova

I stood by the unvintageable sea

Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray,

The long red fires of the dying day

Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;

And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:

“Alas! ” I cried, “my life is full of pain,

And who can garner fruit or golden grain,

From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!”

My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw

Nathless I threw them as my final cast

Into the sea, and waited for the end.

When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw

The argent splendor of white limbs ascend,

And in that joy forgot my tortured past.

Oscar Wilde, from Rosa Mystica, 1881

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