Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890. Today he is remembered for his many epigrams, his plays which are still revived, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death.
Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan For sins no bleating victim can atone, And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. Girt was he in a garment black and red, And at his feet I marked a broken stone Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame, I cried to Beatrice, 'Who are these?' And she made answer, knowing well each name, 'AEschylos first, the second Sophokles, And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.'
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