Lord Alfred Douglas é apontado por muitos estudiosos como o responsável pela ruína de Oscar Wilde. E ao que tudo indica, o jovem nobre que foi objeto da afeição do grande escritor tinha mesmo um temperamento terrível, que se prolongou até sua velhice (ele sobreviveu a Wilde por 45 anos). Mas não se iludam: foi o próprio Wilde que cavou sua derrocada, desafiando a sociedade vitoriana até o fiim, num processo autodestrutivo. A idéia de que Douglas arruinou o escritor foi em parte alimentada pela própria carta que Wilde lhe escreveu da prisão, "De Profundis", e também por amigos do esteta que detestavam Bosie (o apelido de infância de lord Alfred).
No meio desse turbilhão, muitos se esquecem das qualidades de Douglas como poeta, apontado por alguns como melhor, inclusive, que o próprio Wilde nessa área. Realmente, ele escreveu alguns poemas de rara beleza e extremamente musicais. Eis exemplos:

A Summer Storm

Alas! how frail and weak a little boat
I have sailed in. I called it Happiness,
And I had thought there was not storm nor stress
Of wind so masterful but it would float
Blithely in their despite; but lo! one note
Of harsh discord, one word of bitterness,
And a fierce overwhelming wilderness
Of angry waters chokes my gasping throat.

I am near drowned in this unhappy sea,
I will not strive, let me lie still and sink,
I have no joy to live. Oh! unkind love!
Why have you wounded me so bitterly?
That am as easily wounded as a dove
Who has a silver throat and feet of pink.

* * *

Night Coming Into a Garden

Roses red and white,
Every rose is hanging her head,
Silently comes the lady Night,
Only the flowers can hear her tread.

All day long the birds have been calling,
Calling shrill and sweet,
They are still when she comes with her long robe falling,
Falling down to her feet.

The thrush has sung to his mate,
“She is coming! hush! she is coming!”
She is lifting the latch at the gate,
And the bees have ceased from their humming.

I cannot see her face as she passes
Through my garden of white and red;
But I know she is walking where the daisies and grasses
Are curtseying after her tread.

She has passed me by with a rustle and sweep
Of her robe (as she passed I heard it sweeping),
And all my red roses have fallen asleep,
And all my white roses are sleeping.

* * *

The Dead Poet (relembrando Wilde)

I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face
All radiant and unshadowed of distress,
And as of old, in music measureless,
I heard his golden voice and marked him trace
Under the common thing the hidden grace,
And conjure wonder out of emptiness
Till mean things put on beauty like a dress
And all the world was an enchanted place.

And then methought outside a fast locked gate
I mourned the loss of unrecorded words,
Forgotten tales and mysteries half said,
Wonders that might have been articulate,
And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds.
And so I woke and knew he was dead.