Decadents, Symbolists, Anti-Decadents

OLIVE CUSTANCE

Opals 1897
bound with
Rainbows 1902

Olive Custance’s first two books show her work at its best. She was a minor poet caught up in the concerns of her generation; which means that she tackles decadent themes. The whiff of the perverse reflected the style and adventures of her life, notably her love for Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom she eloped in 1901. Her verse is slight and lyrical, and too much must not be made of it. But it conveys an unmistakable flavour of its time, both in its imagery and technique and in its self-exposure and yearning for the sexually unattainable.

£30 $49.50

I met Youth in a garden wild,
With roses tangled in her hair,
She looked into my eyes and smiled,
‘Kiss me,’ she said, ‘for I am fair.’

But laughingly I went my way
And heeded not the words she said;
What was her smile to me that day,
Her mischievous sweet mouth so red? ...

I went my way with dancing feet,
For I was slow to learn the truth,
That fame, and love, and song are sweet,
But not more thrilling sweet than youth.

(from ‘A Song of Youth’, Rainbows page 67)

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Poetry of the 1890s