Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.



Poem: Magdalen Walks



[After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity
College, Dublin, in 1874, Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford, where he
obtained a demyship at Magdalen College. He is the only real poet
on the books of that institution.]


The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.