Amor Intellectualis

 by Oscar Wilde

Amor Intellectualis 

OFT have we trod the vales of Castaly

And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown

From antique reeds to common folk unknown:

And often launched our bark upon that sea

Which the nine Muses hold in empery,

And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,

Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home

Till we had freighted well our argosy.

Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,

Sordello's passion, and the honied line 

Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine

Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,

The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,

And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies. 

The Artist 

One evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment. And he went forth into the world to look for bronze. For he could only think in bronze.

But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere in the whole world was there any bronze to be found, save only the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that endureth for Ever.

Now this image he had himself, and with his own hands, fashioned, and had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of the dead thing he had most loved had he set this image of his own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man that endureth for ever. And in the whole world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this image.

And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace, and gave it to the fire.

And out of the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that endureth for Ever he fashioned an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment. 

The Disciple 

When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of

sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping

through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it

comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet

waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of

their hair and cried to the pool and said, 'We do not wonder that

you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was

he.'

'But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool.

'Who should know that better than you?' answered the Oreads. 'Us

did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your

banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he

would mirror his own beauty.'

And the pool answered, 'But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on

my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw

ever my own beauty mirrored.'