| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXIX. The Happy Dead
The Grave of Shelley | | By Oscar Wilde (1856–1900) |
| | | 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, | 5 |
| In the still chamber of yon pyramid | |
| Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, | |
| Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. | |
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| Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb | |
| Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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