The Dead Poet[37]

I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face All radiant and unshadowed of distress, And as of old, in music measureless, I heard his golden voice and marked him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace, And conjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on beauty like a dress And all the world was an enchanted place.

And then methought outside a fast locked gate I mourned the loss of unrecorded words, Forgotten tales and mysteries half said Wonders that might have been articulate, And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds And so I woke and knew that he was dead.

[37] In the Appendix I have published the first sketch of this fine sonnet:  lovers of poetry will like to compare them.

CHAPTER XXVI

In a day or two, however, the clouds lifted and the sun shone as brilliantly as ever.  Oscar’s spirits could not be depressed for long:  he took a child’s joy in living and in every incident of life.  When I left him in Paris a week or so later, in midsummer, he was full of gaiety and humour, talking as delightfully as ever with a touch of cynicism that added piquancy to his wit.  Shortly after I arrived in London he wrote saying he was ill, and that I really ought to send him some money.  I had already paid him more than the amount we had agreed upon at first for his scenario, and I was hard up and anything but well.  I had chronic bronchitis which prostrated me time and again that autumn.  Having heard from mutual friends that Oscar’s illness did not hinder him from dining out and enjoying himself, I received his plaints and requests with a certain impatience, and replied to him curtly.  His illness appeared to me to be merely a pretext.  When my play was accepted his demands became as insistent as they were extravagant.

Finally I went back to Paris in September to see him, persuaded that I could settle everything amicably in five minutes’ talk:  he must remember our agreement.

I found him well in health, but childishly annoyed that my play was going to be produced and resolved to get all the money he could from me by hook or by crook.  I never met such persistence in demands.  I could only settle with him decently by paying him a further sum, which I did.

In the course of this bargaining and begging I realised that contrary to my previous opinion he was not gifted as a friend, and did not attribute any importance to friendship.  His affection for Bosie Douglas even had given place to hatred:  indeed his liking for him had never been founded on understanding or admiration; it was almost wholly snobbish:  he loved the title, the romantic name—­Lord Alfred Douglas.  Robert Ross was the only friend of whom he always spoke with liking and appreciation:  “One of the wittiest of men,” he used to call him and would jest at his handwriting, which was peculiarly bad, but always good-naturedly; “a