Here are the two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas which were read out in Court, on account of which the prosecution sought to incriminate Oscar Wilde. My readers can judge for themselves the value of any inference to be drawn from such work by another hand. To me, I must confess, the poems themselves seem harmless and pretty — I had almost said, academic and unimportant.
Two Loves
To “The Sphinx”

Two loves I have of comfort and despair

That like two spirits do suggest me still,

My better angel is a man right fair,

My worse a woman tempting me to ill. — Shakespeare.

I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,

And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed

Like a waste garden, flowering at its will

With flowers and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed

Black and unruffled; there were white lilies

A few, and crocuses, and violets

Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries

Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets

Blue eyes of shy pervenche winked in the sun.

And there were curious flowers, before unknown,

Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades

Of Nature’s wilful moods; and here a one

That had drunk in the transitory tone

Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades

Of grass that in an hundred springs had been

Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars,

And watered with the scented dew long cupped

In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen

Only God’s glory, for never a sunrise mars

The luminous air of heaven. Beyond, abrupt,

A gray stone wall, o’ergrown with velvet moss

Uprose. And gazing I stood long, all mazed

To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.

And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across

The garden came a youth, one hand he raised

To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair

Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore

A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes

Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,

White as the snow on pathless mountains frore,

Red were his lips as red wine-spilth that dyes

A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.

And he came near me, with his lips uncurled

And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth,

And gave me grapes to eat, and said, “Sweet friend,

Come, I will show thee shadows of the world

And images of life. See, from the south

Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.”

And lo! within the garden of my dream

I saw two walking on a shining plain

O............