Explore "La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente" by Oscar Wilde on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My limbs are wasted with a flame, / My feet are sore with travelling, / For, calling on my Lady's name, / My lips have now forgot to sing.
O Linnet in the wild-rose brake / Strain for my Love thy melody, / O Lark sing louder for love's sake, / My gentle Lady passeth by.
She is too fair for any man / To see or hold his heart's delight, / Fairer than Queen or courtesan / Or moonlit water in the night.
Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves, / (Green leaves upon her golden hair! )
Green grasses through the yellow sheaves / Of autumn corn are not more fair.
Her little lips, more made to kiss / Than to cry bitterly for pain, / Are tremulous as brook-water is, / Or roses after evening rain.
Her neck is like white melilote / Flushing for pleasure of the sun, / The throbbing of the linnet's throat / Is not so sweet to look upon.
As a pomegranate, cut in twain, / White-seeded, is her crimson mouth, / Her cheeks are as the fading stain / Where the peach reddens to the south.
O twining hands! O delicate / White body made for love and pain!
O House of love! O desolate / Pale flower beaten by the rain!