Wilde about the boy

The arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel

by John Betjeman (1937)

He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer

As he gazed at the London skies

Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains

Or was it his bee-winged eyes?

To the right and before him Pont street

Did tower in her new built red,

As hard as the morning gas light

That shone on his unmade bed.

"I want some more hock in my seltzer,

And Robbie, please give me your hand -

Is this the end or the beginning?

How can I understand?"

"So you've brought me the latest Yellow Book:

And Buchan has got it now:"

Approval of what is approved of

Is as false as well-kept vow.

"More hock, Robbie - where is the seltzer?

Dear boy, pull again at the bell!

They are little better than cretins

Though this is the Cadogan Hotel."

"One astrakhan coat is at the Willis's -

Another one's at the Savoy:

Do fetch my Morocco portmanteau,

And bring them on later, dear boy."

A thump and a murmur of voices -

("Oh, why must they make such a din?")

As the door of the bedroom swung open

And two PLAIN CLOTHES POLICEMEN came in:

"Mr. Woilde, we 'ave come for tew take yew

Where felons and criminals dwell:

We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly

For this is the Cadogan Hotel."

He rose, and he put down the Yellow Book

He staggered - and, terrible-eyed,

He brushed past the plants on the staircase

And was helped to a hansom outside.

 

Michael Sheen (as Robbie Ross of Toronto), doffing his hat in deference after the verdict.

Reading Gaol

Wilde went from Newgate to Pentonville to Wandsworth and finally to Reading.  It was at Wandsworth where he collapsed in chapel, rupturing an eardrum.  This injury was the cause, years later, of his death in Paris due to meningitis.

Henry may have been the 'little dark-eyed chap' (he was only 157 cm tall) that became a favourite of Wilde's during his incarceration at Reading, noted in his letters.  He was a petty thief, but lived on into the 1950s, ending his days as a gardener.  Wilde sent him money after he was released.

Free in Rome, 1900