"The Master", page 1

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Oscar Wilde
1854–1900

"The Master," from Poems in Prose

Autograph manuscript signed, undated. 2 p.

Gift of Lucia Moreira Salles, 2008

MA 7258.6
Transcription: 

Page 1

(8)

Webb [typesetter's name]

The Master.

    Now when the great black darkness came over the earth Joseph of Arithmathea, having lighted a torch of pinewood, passed down from the hill into the valley. For he had business in his own home.
    And kneeling on the flint-stones of the Valley of Desolation he saw a young man who was naked and weeping. His hair was the colour of honey and his body was as a white flower, but he had wounded his body with thorns and on his hair had he set ashes as a crown.
    And he who had great possessions said to him the young man who was naked and weeping, "I do not wonder that your sorrow is so great. For surely He was a just man."
    But And the young man answered, "It is not for him that I am weeping, but for myself. I too also have changed water into wine, and I have healed the leper and given sight to the blind. I have walked upon the waves of the sea waters, and from the dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the hungry on strange in the desert where there was no food, and I have raised the dead from