Alas (Helas) by Oscar Wilde
Poet: Oscar Wilde | Nationality: Ireland
Not sure of the filmmaker’s full name, but he’s Kevin on Vimeo, and obviously very professional in his approach to filmmaking. Here’s what he has to say about this piece:
An homage to the great Oscar Wilde, one of his lesser known poems penned in 1881 entitled “Helas” which translated from French is “Alas”. Interpreted by the mesmerizing young actor, Isaac Haldeman, set to the hauntingly austere music of Kevin McLeod, shot in Brooklyn with a Panasonic Lumix GH1.
This haunting video works very well with this poem. My only nig was the fact that this was written as a sonnet with an abba,abba,cdccdd rhyme pattern that you do not have the chance to appreciate, the way it was performed for this video.
Helas Alas
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely that was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God;
is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance—
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?