{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/athanasia",
 "title": "Athanasia",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 25,
 "container": "Wind Flowers",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1881,
  "venue": "Poems (1881)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1057"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/oscar-wilde_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1338",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lotus_Leaves",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wasted_Days_(from_a_Picture_Painted_by_Miss_V._T.)",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102953450",
   "https://archive.org/details/ravennarecitedin00wildrich",
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   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006061074",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100217578",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013571082",
   "https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18770721-01.2.24"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-19"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 60,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the great things men have saved from Time,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The withered body of a girl was brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dim womb of some black pyramid.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when they had unloosed the linen band",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which swathed the Egyptian’s body⁠—lo! was found",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A little seed, which sown in English ground",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With such strange arts this flower did allure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all forgotten was the asphodel,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For not a thing of earth it seemed to be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At its own beauty, hung across the stream,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The purple dragon-fly had no delight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For love of it the passionate nightingale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the pale dove no longer cared to sail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the wet woods at time of blossoming,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But round this flower of Egypt sought to float,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With silvered wing and amethystine throat.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A cooling wind crept from the land of snows,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the warm south with tender tears of dew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And broad and glittering like an argent shield",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Did no strange dream or evil memory make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seemed but the lingering of a summer’s day,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It never knew the tide of cankering fears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The dread desire of death it never knew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or how all folk that they were born must rue.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For we to death with pipe and dancing go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As some sad river wearied of its flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And counts it gain to die so gloriously.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We mar our lordly strength in barren strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the world’s legions led by clamorous care,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It never feels decay but gathers life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We live beneath Time’s wasting sovereignty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is the child of all eternity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}