Oscar Wilde

Words fail me where they were the income and life's work of this truly iconic beautiful man!

He died peniless which is one of those things that makes you look really hard at life

The Harlot's house:

 

We caught the tread of dancing feet, 

We loitered down the moonlit street, 

And stopped beneath the harlot's house. 

Inside, above the din and fray, 

We heard the loud musicians play 

The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss. 

Like strange mechanical grotesques, 

Making fantastic arabesques, 

The shadows raced across the blind. 

We watched the ghostly dancers spin 

To sound of horn and violin, 

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. 

Like wire-pulled automatons, 

Slim silhouetted skeletons 

Went sidling through the slow quadrille. 

They took each other by the hand, 

And danced a stately saraband; 

Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. 

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed 

A phantom lover to her breast, 

Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. 

Sometimes a horrible marionette 

Came out, and smoked its cigarette 

Upon the steps like a live thing. 

Then, turning to my love, I said, 

"The dead are dancing with the dead, 

The dust is whirling with the dust." 

But she--she heard the violin, 

And left my side, and entered in: 

Love passed into the house of Lust. 

Then suddenly the tune went false, 

The shadows wearied of the waltz, 

The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. 

And down the long and silent street, 

The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, 

Crept like a frightened girl.

Dandy prince! Influence to many, gone but never ever forgotten to the realm of history

All pics from Pinterest

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