Helas!

Name: Charmides and Other Poems - Helas!
Author: Oscar Wilde

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance -
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

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Chicago: Oscar Wilde, "Helas!," Charmides and Other Poems, ed. Sutherland, Alexander, 1853-1902 and trans. Seaton, R. C. in Charmides and Other Poems (New York: George E. Wood, ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892), Original Sources, accessed July 1, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=62Y8FRSM22ZA84Z.

MLA: Wilde, Oscar. "Helas!." Charmides and Other Poems, edited by Sutherland, Alexander, 1853-1902, and translated by Seaton, R. C., in Charmides and Other Poems, New York, George E. Wood, ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892, Original Sources. 1 Jul. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=62Y8FRSM22ZA84Z.

Harvard: Wilde, O, 'Helas!' in Charmides and Other Poems, ed. and trans. . cited in ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892, Charmides and Other Poems, George E. Wood, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 1 July 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=62Y8FRSM22ZA84Z.