In the lone tent, waiting for victory,
She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,
Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,
War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry,
To her proud soul no common fear can bring:
Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,
Her soul aflame with passionate ecstasy.
O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face!
Made for the luring and the love of man!
With thee I do forget the toil and stress,
The loveless road that knows no resting-place,
Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness,
My freedom and my life republican.

Lyric poetry is by its excellence the chief art of England, as music
is the art of Germany. A book of poetry is almost sure of fair
appreciation in the English press which does not trouble to notice a
"Sartor Resartus" or the first essays of an Emerson. The excessive
consideration given to Oscar's book by the critics showed that already
his personality and social success had affected the reporters.

_The Athenaeum_ gave the book the place of honour in its number for the
23rd of July. The review was severe; but not unjust. "Mr. Wilde's
volume of poems," it says, "may be regarded as the evangel of a new
creed. From other gospels it differs in coming after, instead of
before, the cult it seeks to establish.... We fail to see, however,
that the apostle of the new worship has any distinct message."

The critic then took pains to prove that "nearly all the book is
imitative" ... and concluded: "Work of this nature has no element of
endurance."

_The Saturday Review_ dismissed the book at the end of an article on
"Recent Poetry" as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in
the English fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up
fairly enough: "This book is not without traces of cleverness, but it
is marred everywhere by imitation, insincerity, and bad taste."

At the same time the notices in _Punch_ were extravagantly bitter,
while of course the notices in _The World_, mainly written by Oscar's
brother, were extravagantly eulogistic. _Punch_ declared that "Mr.
Wilde may be aesthetic, but he is not original ... a volume of echoes
... Swinburne and water."

Now what did _The Athenaeum_ mean by taking a new book of imitative
verse so seriously and talking of it as the "evangel of a new creed,"
besides suggesting that "it comes after t