Read "On the Sale by Auction of Keats' Love Letters" by Oscar Wilde online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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?