Ballade of reading Gaol. Wilde Oscar

aol

      I

      He did not wear his scarlet coat,

      For blood and wine are red,

      And blood and wine were on his hands

      When they found him with the dead,

      The poor dead woman whom he loved,

      And murdered in her bed.

      He walked amongst the Trial Men

      In a suit of shabby grey;

      A cricket cap was on his head,

      And his step seemed light and gay;

      But I never saw a man who looked

      So wistfully at the day.

      I never saw a man who looked

      With such a wistful eye

      Upon that little tent of blue

      Which prisoners call the sky,

      And at every drifting cloud that went

      With sails of silver by.

      I walked, with other souls in pain,

      Within another ring,

      And was wondering if the man had done

      A great or little thing,

      When a voice behind me whispered low,

      "That fellows got to swing."

      Dear Christ! the very prison walls

      Suddenly seemed to reel,

      And the sky above my head became

      Like a casque of scorching steel;

      And, though I was a soul in pain,

      My pain I could not feel.

      I only knew what hunted thought

      Quickened his step, and why

      He looked upon the garish day

      With such a wistful eye;

      The man had killed the thing he loved

      And so he had to die.

      ___

      Yet each man kills the thing he loves

      By each let this be heard,

      Some do it with a bitter look,

      Some with a flattering word,

      The coward does it with a kiss,

      The brave man with a sword!

      Some kill their love when they are young,

      And some when they are old;

      Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

      Some with the hands of Gold:

      The kindest use a knife, because

      The dead so soon grow cold.

      Some love too little, some too long,

      Some sell, and others buy;

      Some do the deed with many tears,

      And some without a sigh:

      For each man kills the thing he loves,

      Yet each man does not die.

      ___

      He does not die a death of shame

      On a day of dark disgrace,

      Nor have a noose about his neck,

      Nor a cloth upon his face,

      Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

      Into an empty place

      He does not sit with silent men

      Who watch him night and day;

      Who watch him when he tries to weep,

      And when he tries to pray;

      Who watch him lest himself should rob

      The prison of its prey.

      He does not wake at dawn to see

      Dread figures throng his room,

      The shivering Chaplain robed in white,

      The Sheriff stern with gloom,

      And the Governor all in shiny black,

      With the yellow face of Doom.

      He does not rise in piteous haste

      To put on convict-clothes,

      While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes

      Each new and nerve-twitched pose,

      Fingering a watch whose little ticks

      Are like horrible hammer-blows.

      He does not know that sickening thirst

      That sands one's throat, before

      The hangman with his gardener's gloves

      Slips through the padded door,

      And binds one with three leathern thongs,

      That the throat may thirst no more.

      He does not bend his head to hear

      The Burial Office read,

      Nor, while the terror of his soul

      Tells him he is not dead,

      Cross his own coffin, as he moves

      Into the hideous shed.

      He does not stare upon the air

      Through a little roof of glass;

      He does not pray with lips of clay

      For his agony to pass;

      Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek

      The kiss of Caiaphas.

      II

      Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,

      In a suit of shabby grey:

      His cricket cap was on his head,

      And his step seemed light and gay,

      But I never saw a man who looked

      So wistfully at the day.

      I never saw a man who looked

      With such a wistful eye

      Upon that little tent of blue

      Which prisoners call the sky,

      And at every wandering cloud that trailed

      Its raveled fleeces by.

      He did not wring his hands, as do

      Those witless men who dare

      To try to rear the changeling Hope

      In the cave of black Despair:

      He only looked upon the sun,

      And drank the morning air.

      He did not wring his hands nor weep,

      Nor did he peek or pine,

      But he drank the air as though it held

      Some healthful anodyne;

      With open mouth he drank the sun

      As though it had been wine!

      And I and all the souls in pain,

      Who tramped the other ring,

      Forgot if we ourselves had done

      A great or little thing,

      And watched with gaze of dull amaze

      The man who had to swing.

      And strange it was to see him pass

      With a step so light and gay,

      And strange it was to see him look

      So wistfully at the day,

      And strange it was to think that he

      Had