"... wake from his forgotten tomb the sweet Syrian, Meleager, and bid the lover of Heliodore make you music, for he too has flowers in his song, red pomegranate-blossoms, and irises that smell of myrrh, ringed daffodils and dark blue hyacinths, and marjoram and crinkled ox-eyes. Dear to him was the perfume of the beanfield at evening, and dear to him the odorous eared-spikenard that grew on the Syrian hills, and the fresh green thyme, the winecup's charm. The feet of his love as she walked in the garden were like lilies set upon lilies. Softer than sleep-laden poppy petals were her lips, softer than violets and as scented. The flame-light crocus sprang from the grass to look at her. For her the slim narcissus stored the cool rain; and for her the anemones forgot the Sicilian winds that wooed them. And neither crocus, nor anemone, nor narcissus was as fair as she was." If the song of Meleager was sweet and if the suns of summer greet the mountain grave of Helikê, and the shepherds still repeat their legends where breaks the blue Sicilian sea by which Theocritus tuned his lyre; if the voice of Dante yet rings and sounds in the world-weary ears of mortals of to-day; if "As You Like It" has still its appeal to our modern ears as from a woodland full of flutes, then, indeed, this prose of Oscar Wilde's, so beautiful and so august, will remain with us always as an imperishable treasure of literature and as a lyric in our hearts. "Poems in Prose" that Oscar Wilde wrote were published first in _The Fortnightly Review_, during July, 1894, when Mr Frank Harris was the editor. We must remember the date because it was only a few months before the absolute downfall of the author. In criticising this work of Wilde's, we cannot help the reflection that it was written at a time when enormous, sudden, and overwhelming success had thrown him entirely from his mental balance, and had filled him with an even greater egoism than he ordinarily had, at the time these fables, or allegories, let us call them, were produced, Oscar Wilde was at the very height of his success, and of his almost insane irresponsibility also.