Today 125 years ago Oscar Wilde took his final breath.
His grave is in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris with the following lines From ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol.’
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners are outcast men
And outcasts always mourn.
The following notes are taken from Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde, Wordsworth
Poetry Library with notes by Dr Anne Varty, University of London.
Robert Ross, friend and literary executor worked hard to rehabilitate the
reputation of his friend and to bring Wilde’s estate, bankrupt in 1895, back into
credit for the benefits of his sons Cyril born in 1885 and Vyvian born in 1886.
At the age of 28 Wilde lectured in America promoting Patience, an opera
by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Wilde is rarely remembered as a poet, this aspect of his work has been eclipsed
by his extraordinary life, stories and plays.
‘Requiescat’ ‘May she rest’ was a poem written by Wilde in 1874 in memory of his sister Isola who died in 1867 shortly before her tenth birthday, when Wilde was twelve.
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow
This was the only poem by Wilde that Yeats chose to anthologise in his
1895 edition of A Book of Irish Verse.
