3-057-410 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

"The Sphinx" - a poem by Oscar Wilde, c1883-1895. 'In a dim corner of my room, of or [?] longer than my fancy thinks, a beautiful and silent Sphynx has watched me through the shifting gloom. Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir, For silver moons are nought to her and nought to her the suns that reel. Red follows grey across the air, the waves of moonlight ebb and flow But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there. Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat Lies couching on the Chinese mat, with eyes of satin rimmed with gold. Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat of her Flutters the soft and fur or ripples to her pointed ears. Come forth my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque! Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman and half animal! Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my knee! And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx! And let me touch those curving claws Of yellow ivory and grasp The tail that, like a monstrous asp, coils round your heavy velvet paws'.