| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | Phédre | | By Oscar Wilde |
| | TO SARAH BERNHARDT
HOW vain and dull this common world must seem | |
| To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked | |
| At Florence with Mirandola, or walked | |
| Through the cool olives of the Academe; | |
| Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream | 5 |
| For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played | |
| With the white girls in that Phæacian glade | |
| Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. | |
| Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay | |
| Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again | 10 |
| Back to this common world so dull and vain, | |
| For thou wert weary of the sunless day, | |
| The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, | |
| The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. | | | | |
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