At Verona
At Verona - context Summary
Written During Imprisonment
This poem, tied to Wilde's experience of imprisonment and exile, frames a speaker lamenting the harshness of life away from former privilege. The speaker rejects despair despite bitter food and social exile, imagining death in battle or the streets of Florence as preferable. Yet behind "prison's blinded bars" the poem insists on an inner possession—love and the stars—that sustains dignity and counters external ruin.
Read Complete AnalysesHow steep the stairs within Kings' houses are For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread, And O how salt and bitter is the bread Which falls from this Hound's table,--better far That I had died in the red ways of war, Or that the gate of Florence bare my head, Than to live thus, by all things comraded Which seek the essence of my soul to mar. "Curse God and die: what better hope than this? He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss Of his gold city, and eternal day"-- Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars I do possess what none can take away, My love, and all the glory of the stars.
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