Oscar Wilde: On The Sale By Auction Of Keats' Love Letters

These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?

Oscar Wilde: Silentium Amoris

Mint a tüzes nap is elkergeti
a sárga holdat, mely sötét odún
búj meg, habár a csalogány neki
nem is dalolt még s csőre hangtalan,
úgy Szépségedtől béna ajkam
s lágy énekem is elhal szomorún.

Mint szél, amely hajnalban nyargal át
a sik mezőn, gyors szárnnyal, szertelen
s garázda csókjától lehull a nád,
pedig dalának ez a hangszere.
Úgy szivem is vad vággyal van tele
és elnémit titáni Szerelem.

De nézz szemembe, majd az megfelel,
mért nem bir szájam, ajkam zengeni:
ha ezt sem érted, váljunk csendben el.
Te egy dalosabb ajkhoz s én a holt,
el nem csókolt csókok, el nem dalolt
dalok kopár kincsén merengeni.

(Kosztolányi Dezső fordítása)

Oscar Wilde: Silentium Amoris

As often-times the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.

And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.