Quia Multum amavi —a Latin phrase that means: “because I have loved so much”— is, without a doubt, one of Oscar Wilde’s greatest poems, where his deep admiration for decadence, romanticism, and ancient Latin poems can be observed.

In short: Quia Multum amavi is a poem about remorse, or better said, rethinking certain decisions of the past, also imagining how things would have been if we had taken a different path.

Poem:

His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! had’st thou liked me less and loved me more,
Through all those summer days of joy and rain,
I had not now been sorrow’s heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.

Yet, though remorse, youth’s white-faced seneschal
Tread on my heels with all his retinue,
I am most glad I loved thee—think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)