A fair slim boy not made for this world’s pain,
   With hair of gold thick clustering round his ears,
   And longing eyes half veiled by foolish tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain;
Pale cheeks whereon no kiss hath left its stain,
   Red under-lip drawn in for fear of Love,
   And white throat, whiter than the [breast of]1 dove—
Alas! alas! if all should be in vain.
Corn-fields behind, and reapers all a-row
In weariest labour, toiling wearily,
To no sweet sound of laughter, or of lute;
And careless of the crimson sunset-glow,
The boy still dreams; nor knows that night is nigh,
And in the night-time no man gathers fruit.

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Oscar Wilde, The annotated Oscar Wilde: poems, fictions, plays, lectures, essays, and letters, New York: C.N. Potter, distributed by Crown Publishers, 1982, page 44.

¹ Medlock: "silvered." This poem is an earlier version of Wilde's "Madonna Mia" originally published in the Dublin University magazine Kottabos in 1877. It was edited to reference a female subject and published as "Madonna Mia" in Wilde's first edition of poetry in 1881. The first eight lines are very similar between the two versions, with only the subject and a few descriptors differing. The description of the subject's throat used by Medlock ("whiter than the silvered dove") is from "Madonna Mia." The final six lines of the two sonnets are entirely distinct from one another. Here is a link to the text of "Madonna Mia"

Text Authorship:

• by Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), "Wasted days", written 1877, Dublin: Kottabos, Michaelmas Term, 1877, first published 1877 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Garrett Medlock (b. 1993), "Wasted days", 2025, published 2025, copyright © 2025 [ tenor and piano ], from The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, no. 5, Lupine Press [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2025-08-28
Line count: 14
Word count: 114