Ernest Dowson was a late Victorian English poet. He was born in Kent and attended Queens College, Oxford. He left without graduating. In 1894, when he was 27 years old, his poem “Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae” appeared in the Rhymers’ Club, an anthology containing the work of several poets.

Consumption ran in the family, as did depression. In August of 1894, Dowson’s father, suffering from tuberculosis, overdosed on chloral hydrate and died. Ernest’s mother, who also had consumption, hanged herself six months later.

Dowson’s life was steeped in excess. His poetry is thought to be part of the Decadent movement, which is so strongly associated with Oscar Wilde. You picture Dowson sitting in dark, ornate parlors, drinking absinthe while perched on a sofa upholstered in crushed red velvet. Like his parents, young Ernest suffered from consumption–and poor habits. He liked the ladies of the demi-monde and gambled more than he ever possessed.

Late in 1899, a friend happened to encounter Dowson in a saloon. Ernest was clearly ill and penniless. As he once wrote, “I was not sorrowful, but only tired Of everything that ever I desired.” The friend took Dowson to his home, where he spent the last six weeks of his life.  He died of tuberculosis in Kent on February 23, 1900.

Ernest Dowson’s poetry is beautiful. The first poem I’ll share contains two phrases you’ve probably heard before: I have been faithful…in my fashion and gone with the wind. The second poem contains the phrase days of wine and roses. It’s funny, isn’t it, that these phrases are so well-known but the man who originated them is not?

As you’ll see, Ernest Dowson favored Latin titles but the texts are in English.

 

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae
I am not what I was under Cynara’s Reign

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind,
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

 

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam
The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

 

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