(no subject)
Have been thinking about Oscar Wilde.
This is one of my favourite poems by Wilde simply because whenever I read it I never know whether he is being insightful and profound, sarcastic or just playing to the masses with poem about love and loss. I think that that is the function of a great poem, to make you constantly re-evaluate what you think of it, so that it’s mean changes as you do, pretty profound, huh, or am I just being pretentious? What do you think?
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
-Oscar Wilde-