An exile's bread and the stars
At Verona
"My love, and all the glory of the stars."
Poem
How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses areFor exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,And O how salt and bitter is the breadWhich falls from this Hound’s table—better farThat I had died in the red ways of war,Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,Than to live thus, by all things comradedWhich seek the essence of my soul to mar.
“Curse God and die: what better hope than this?He hath forgotten thee in all the blissOf his gold city, and eternal day”—Nay peace: behind my prison’s blinded barsI do possess what none can take away,My love, and all the glory of the stars.
In brief
SummaryA sonnet spoken by an exile from Florence who lives on the charity of a lord at Verona. He complains how steep are the stairs in kings' houses and how bitter the bread from 'this Hound's table', and says he would rather have died in war or had his head set on the gate of Florence. A voice tempts him to 'Curse God and die', since God has forgotten him. He refuses: behind his prison bars he still holds what no one can take, 'My love, and all the glory of the stars'.
Key themes
"How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are"
Summary
The octave is a lament. 'How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are / For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread', the speaker begins, and 'how salt and bitter is the bread / Which falls from this Hound's table'. It would have been 'better far' to die 'in the red ways of war', or for 'the gate of Florence' to bear his head, than to live 'by all things comraded / Which seek the essence of my soul to mar'.
The sestet opens with a tempting voice, set in quotation marks: 'Curse God and die: what better hope than this? / He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss / Of his gold city, and eternal day'. The exile answers it: 'Nay peace'. Even 'behind my prison's blinded bars', he says, 'I do possess what none can take away, / My love, and all the glory of the stars.'
Characters
The exile
A Florentine in Verona
The speaker, banished from Florence and living on a lord's charity at Verona. The details match Dante's exile, though the poem does not name him. He feels his soul worn down by dependence, resists the voice urging him to curse God, and holds on to his love and 'the glory of the stars'.
The tempting voice
The call to despair
An unnamed voice, given in quotation marks at the start of the sestet, that urges the exile to 'Curse God and die', claiming that God has forgotten him in the bliss 'Of his gold city, and eternal day'. The exile silences it with 'Nay peace'.
Themes
The humiliation of exile
The octave dwells on the small indignities of living as a dependant. The stairs of a great house are 'steep' for 'exile-wearied feet', the bread 'salt and bitter', and the patron is 'this Hound'. The speaker would rather have met a violent end, 'in the red ways of war' or with his head on 'the gate of Florence', than live among things that 'seek the essence of my soul to mar'.
Despair refused
The tempting words 'Curse God and die' are the advice given to Job by his wife in the Bible, and the voice adds that God has forgotten the exile 'in all the bliss / Of his gold city'. The speaker's reply, 'Nay peace', turns the poem. His inner freedom survives imprisonment: 'I do possess what none can take away, / My love, and all the glory of the stars.'
Quotes
Context
'At Verona' appears in the 'Fourth Movement' section of Wilde's collected poems. It is a sonnet in the voice of an exile from Florence at Verona. Its details point to Dante, who spent part of his exile at the court of Cangrande della Scala, lord of Verona, whose name means 'great dog'. The opening echoes Dante's own lines in the Paradiso on the salt taste of another's bread and the hardness of another's stairs.
About this edition
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