More made to kiss than to cry bitterly for pain...

I am such a girl. And more-over, I am a girl who loves almost everything written by Oscar Wilde.

I know, I know, what a contradiction: a Christain who loves the writings of a hedonist, and a gay one at that. But I can't help but hope--alot--that De Profundis (and the conversion it beautifuly describes) was sincere, and I will get to be friends with this guy in heaven. Because, as broken, broken, fallen as he was, this was a guy who longed for beauty, albeit in all the wrong places.

A C.S. Lewis quote describes what I mean well; "I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking, even in his most depraved wishes, will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'."

So, regardless of Wilde's depravity, I find God's heart for me in Wind Flowers:

"La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente"

My limbs are wasted with a flame,

My feet are sore with travelling,

For, calling on my Lady's name,

My lips have now forgot to sing.

 

O Linnet in the wild-rose brake

Strain for my Love thy melody,

O Lark sing louder for love's sake,

My gentle Lady passeth by.

 

She is too fair for any man

To see or hold his heart's delight,

Fairer than Queen or courtesan

Or moonlit water in the night.

 

Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,

(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)

Green grasses through the yellow sheaves

Of autumn corn are not more fair.

 

Her little lips, more made to kiss

Than to cry bitterly for pain,

Are tremulous as brook-water is,

Or roses after evening rain.

 

Her neck is like white melilote

Flushing for pleasure of the sun,

The throbbing of the linnet's throat

Is not so sweet to look upon.

 

As a pomegranate, cut in twain,

White-seeded, is her crimson mouth,

Her cheeks are as the fading stain

Where the peach reddens to the south.

 

O twining hands! O delicate

White body made for love and pain!

O House of love! O desolate

Pale flower beaten by the rain!