TO OLIVE

by: Alfred Douglas (1870-1945)

HAVE been profligate of happiness

And reckless of the world's hostility,

The blessèd part has not been given to me

Gladly to suffer fools, I do confess

I have enticed and merited distress,

By this, that I have never bow'd the knee

Before the shrine of wise Hypocrisy,

Nor worn self-righteous anger like a dress.

 

Yet write you this, sweet one, when I am dead:

'Love like a lamp sway'd over all his days

And all his life was like a lamp-lit chamber,

Where is no nook, no chink unvisited

By the soft affluence of golden rays,

And all the room is bathed in liquid amber.'

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