"We are always apt to think," he wrote, "that the voices which sang at the dawn of poetry were simpler, fresher, and more natural than ours, and that the world which the early poets looked at, and through which they walked, had a kind of poetical quality of its own, and could pass, almost without changing, into song. The snow lies thick now upon Olympus, and its scarped sides are bleak and barren, but once, we fancy, the white feet of the Muses brushed the dew from the anemones in the morning, and at evening came Apollo to sing to the shepherds in the vale. But in this we are merely lending to other ages what we desire, or think we desire, for our own. Our historical sense is at fault. Every century that produces poetry is, so far, an artificial century, and the work that seems to us the most natural and simple product of its time is probably the result of the most deliberate and self-conscious effort. For nature is always behind the age. It takes a great artist to be thoroughly modern." "Ravenna," the poem with which Oscar Wilde won the Newdigate Prize, we find to be far above the average of such effusions, though possessing most of the faults inherent in compositions of this kind. Grace and even force of expression are not wanting, with here and there a pure strain of sentiment and thought, and a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature. Ever and anon we come across some sentence, some _tournure de phrase_ which might belong to his later work, as for instance-- "The crocus bed (that seems a moon of fire Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring)." But for the most part the poem is rather reminiscent of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," and is chiefly interesting by reason of the promise it holds forth. The poems published in 1881 are preceded by some dedicatory verses addressed to his wife which are characterised by great daintiness and simplicity, instinct with tender affection and chivalrous homage. "Helas," which forms a sort of preface to the collection, is chiefly interesting on account of the prophetic pathos of the lines: "Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God." "Ave Imperatrix" will come as a surprise to those unacquainted with Wilde's works. Most people would have thought the author of "Dorian Gray" the last man in the world to write a stirring patriotic poem which would not be out of place in a collection of Mr Kipling's works. A copy of _The World_ containing this poem found its way to an officer in Lord Robert's force marching on Candahar, and evoked the enthusiasm and admiration of the whole mess. As a proof of the author's originality and care in the choice of similes he purposely discards the modern heraldic device of the British lion for the more correct and ancient leopards, as: