\documentclass[DIV=12,%
BCOR=10mm,%
headinclude=false,%
footinclude=false,open=any,%
fontsize=11pt,%
twoside,%
paper=210mm:11in]%
{scrbook}
\usepackage[noautomatic]{imakeidx}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{alltt}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\usepackage[shortlabels]{enumitem}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\def\hsout{\bgroup \ULdepth=-.55ex \ULset}
% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/22410/strikethrough-in-section-title
% Unclear if \protect \hsout is needed. Doesn't looks so
\DeclareRobustCommand{\sout}[1]{\texorpdfstring{\hsout{#1}}{#1}}
\usepackage{wrapfig}
% avoid breakage on multiple
and avoid the next [] to be eaten
\newcommand*{\forcelinebreak}{\strut\\*{}}
\newcommand*{\hairline}{%
\bigskip%
\noindent \hrulefill%
\bigskip%
}
% reverse indentation for biblio and play
\newenvironment*{amusebiblio}{
\leftskip=\parindent
\parindent=-\parindent
\smallskip
\indent
}{\smallskip}
\newenvironment*{amuseplay}{
\leftskip=\parindent
\parindent=-\parindent
\smallskip
\indent
}{\smallskip}
\newcommand*{\Slash}{\slash\hspace{0pt}}
% http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3033/forcing-linebreaks-in-url
\PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url}\usepackage[hyperfootnotes=false,hidelinks,breaklinks=true]{hyperref}
\usepackage{bookmark}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{english}
\setmainfont{LinLibertine_R.otf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine/,%
BoldFont=LinLibertine_RB.otf,%
BoldItalicFont=LinLibertine_RBI.otf,%
ItalicFont=LinLibertine_RI.otf]
\setmonofont{cmuntt.ttf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Scale=MatchLowercase,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/cmu/,%
BoldFont=cmuntb.ttf,%
BoldItalicFont=cmuntx.ttf,%
ItalicFont=cmunit.ttf]
\setsansfont{cmunss.ttf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Scale=MatchLowercase,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/cmu/,%
BoldFont=cmunsx.ttf,%
BoldItalicFont=cmunso.ttf,%
ItalicFont=cmunsi.ttf]
\newfontfamily\englishfont{LinLibertine_R.otf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine/,%
BoldFont=LinLibertine_RB.otf,%
BoldItalicFont=LinLibertine_RBI.otf,%
ItalicFont=LinLibertine_RI.otf]
\renewcommand*{\partpagestyle}{empty}
% global style
\pagestyle{plain}
\usepackage{indentfirst}
% remove the numbering
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-2}
% remove labels from the captions
\renewcommand*{\captionformat}{}
\renewcommand*{\figureformat}{}
\renewcommand*{\tableformat}{}
\KOMAoption{captions}{belowfigure,nooneline}
\addtokomafont{caption}{\centering}
\deffootnote[3em]{0em}{4em}{\textsuperscript{\thefootnotemark}~}
\addtokomafont{disposition}{\rmfamily}
\addtokomafont{descriptionlabel}{\rmfamily}
\frenchspacing
% avoid vertical glue
\raggedbottom
% this will generate overfull boxes, so we need to set a tolerance
% \pretolerance=1000
% pretolerance is what is accepted for a paragraph without
% hyphenation, so it makes sense to be strict here and let the user
% accept tweak the tolerance instead.
\tolerance=200
% Additional tolerance for bad paragraphs only
\setlength{\emergencystretch}{30pt}
% (try to) forbid widows/orphans
\clubpenalty=10000
\widowpenalty=10000
% given that we said footinclude=false, this should be safe
\setlength{\footskip}{2\baselineskip}
\title{The Ballad of Reading Gaol}
\date{1897}
\author{Oscar Wilde}
\subtitle{}
% https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.text.tex/6fYmcVMbSbQ/discussion
\hypersetup{%
pdfencoding=auto,
pdftitle={The Ballad of Reading Gaol},%
pdfauthor={Oscar Wilde},%
pdfsubject={},%
pdfkeywords={death penalty; poetry}%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\strut\vskip 2em
\begin{center}
{\usekomafont{title}{\huge The Ballad of Reading Gaol\par}}%
\vskip 1em
\vskip 2em
{\usekomafont{author}{Oscar Wilde\par}}%
\vskip 1.5em
\vfill
{\usekomafont{date}{1897\par}}%
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\cleardoublepage
\tableofcontents
% start a new right-handed page
\cleardoublepage
\section{I}
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
\forcelinebreak
And blood and wine were on his hands
\forcelinebreak
When they found him with the dead,
\forcelinebreak
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
\forcelinebreak
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
\forcelinebreak
In a suit of shabby gray;
\forcelinebreak
A cricket cap was on his head,
\forcelinebreak
And his step seemed light and gay;
\forcelinebreak
But I never saw a man who looked
\forcelinebreak
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
\forcelinebreak
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
\forcelinebreak
Which prisoners call the sky,
\forcelinebreak
And at every drifting cloud that went
\forcelinebreak
With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
\forcelinebreak
Within another ring,
\forcelinebreak
And was wondering if the man had done
\forcelinebreak
A great or little thing,
\forcelinebreak
When a voice behind me whispered low,
\forcelinebreak
\emph{“That fellow’s got to swing.”}
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
\forcelinebreak
Suddenly seemed to reel,
\forcelinebreak
And the sky above my head became
\forcelinebreak
Like a casque of scorching steel;
\forcelinebreak
And, though I was a soul in pain,
\forcelinebreak
My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought
\forcelinebreak
Quickened his step, and why
\forcelinebreak
He looked upon the garish day
\forcelinebreak
With such a wistful eye;
\forcelinebreak
The man had killed the thing he loved,
\forcelinebreak
And so he had to die.
\bigskip
☀
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
\forcelinebreak
By each let this be heard,
\forcelinebreak
Some do it with a bitter look,
\forcelinebreak
Some with a flattering word,
\forcelinebreak
The coward does it with a kiss,
\forcelinebreak
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
\forcelinebreak
And some when they are old;
\forcelinebreak
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
\forcelinebreak
Some with the hands of Gold:
\forcelinebreak
The kindest use a knife, because
\forcelinebreak
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
\forcelinebreak
Some sell, and others buy;
\forcelinebreak
Some do the deed with many tears,
\forcelinebreak
And some without a sigh:
\forcelinebreak
For each man kills the thing he loves,
\forcelinebreak
Yet each man does not die.
\bigskip
☀
He does not die a death of shame
\forcelinebreak
On a day of dark disgrace,
\forcelinebreak
Nor have a noose about his neck,
\forcelinebreak
Nor a cloth upon his face,
\forcelinebreak
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
\forcelinebreak
Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men
\forcelinebreak
Who watch him night and day;
\forcelinebreak
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
\forcelinebreak
And when he tries to pray;
\forcelinebreak
Who watch him lest himself should rob
\forcelinebreak
The prison of its prey.
He does not wake at dawn to see
\forcelinebreak
Dread figures throng his room,
\forcelinebreak
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
\forcelinebreak
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
\forcelinebreak
And the Governor all in shiny black,
\forcelinebreak
With the yellow face of Doom.
He does not rise in piteous haste
\forcelinebreak
To put on convict-clothes,
\forcelinebreak
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
\forcelinebreak
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
\forcelinebreak
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
\forcelinebreak
Are like horrible hammer-blows.
He does not know that sickening thirst
\forcelinebreak
That sands one’s throat, before
\forcelinebreak
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
\forcelinebreak
Slips through the padded door,
\forcelinebreak
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
\forcelinebreak
That the throat may thirst no more.
He does not bend his head to hear
\forcelinebreak
The Burial Office read,
\forcelinebreak
Nor, while the terror of his soul
\forcelinebreak
Tells him he is not dead,
\forcelinebreak
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
\forcelinebreak
Into the hideous shed.
He does not stare upon the air
\forcelinebreak
Through a little roof of glass:
\forcelinebreak
He does not pray with lips of clay
\forcelinebreak
For his agony to pass;
\forcelinebreak
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
\forcelinebreak
The kiss of Caiaphas.
\section{II}
Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
\forcelinebreak
In the suit of shabby gray:
\forcelinebreak
His cricket cap was on his head,
\forcelinebreak
And his step seemed light and gay,
\forcelinebreak
But I never saw a man who looked
\forcelinebreak
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
\forcelinebreak
With such a wistful eye
\forcelinebreak
Upon that little tent of blue
\forcelinebreak
Which prisoners call the sky,
\forcelinebreak
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
\forcelinebreak
Its ravelled fleeces by.
He did not wring his hands, as do
\forcelinebreak
Those witless men who dare
\forcelinebreak
To try to rear the changeling Hope
\forcelinebreak
In the cave of black Despair:
\forcelinebreak
He only looked upon the sun,
\forcelinebreak
And drank the morning air.
He did not wring his hands nor weep,
\forcelinebreak
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
\forcelinebreak
Some healthful anodyne;
\forcelinebreak
With open mouth he drank the sun
\forcelinebreak
As though it had been wine!
And I and all the souls in pain,
\forcelinebreak
Who tramped the other ring,
\forcelinebreak
Forgot if we ourselves had done
\forcelinebreak
A great or little thing,
\forcelinebreak
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
\forcelinebreak
The man who had to swing.
And strange it was to see him pass
\forcelinebreak
With a step so light and gay,
\forcelinebreak
And strange it was to see him look
\forcelinebreak
So wistfully at the day,
\forcelinebreak
And strange it was to think that he
\forcelinebreak
Had such a debt to pay.
\bigskip
☀
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
\forcelinebreak
That in the spring-time shoot:
\forcelinebreak
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
\forcelinebreak
With its adder-bitten root,
\forcelinebreak
And, green or dry, a man must die
\forcelinebreak
Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is that seat of grace
\forcelinebreak
For which all worldlings try:
\forcelinebreak
But who would stand in hempen band
\forcelinebreak
Upon a scaffold high,
\forcelinebreak
And through a murderer’s collar take
\forcelinebreak
His last look at the sky?
It is sweet to dance to violins
\forcelinebreak
When Love and Life are fair:
\forcelinebreak
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
\forcelinebreak
Is delicate and rare:
\forcelinebreak
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
\forcelinebreak
To dance upon the air!
So with curious eyes and sick surmise
\forcelinebreak
We watched him day by day,
\forcelinebreak
And wondered if each one of us
\forcelinebreak
Would end the self-same way,
\forcelinebreak
For none can tell to what red Hell
\forcelinebreak
His sightless soul may stray.
\bigskip
☀
At last the dead man walked no more
\forcelinebreak
Amongst the Trial Men,
\forcelinebreak
And I knew that he was standing up
\forcelinebreak
In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
\forcelinebreak
And that never would I see his face
\forcelinebreak
In God’s sweet world again.
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
\forcelinebreak
We had crossed each other’s way:
\forcelinebreak
But we made no sign, we said no word,
\forcelinebreak
We had no word to say;
\forcelinebreak
For we did not meet in the holy night,
\forcelinebreak
But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both,
\forcelinebreak
Two outcast men we were:
\forcelinebreak
The world had thrust us from its heart,
\forcelinebreak
And God from out His care:
\forcelinebreak
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
\forcelinebreak
Had caught us in its snare.
\section{III}
In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
\forcelinebreak
And the dripping wall is high,
\forcelinebreak
So it was there he took the air
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the leaden sky,
\forcelinebreak
And by each side a Warder walked,
\forcelinebreak
For fear the man might die.
Or else he sat with those who watched
\forcelinebreak
His anguish night and day;
\forcelinebreak
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
\forcelinebreak
And when he crouched to pray,
\forcelinebreak
Who watched him lest himself should rob
\forcelinebreak
Their scaffold of its prey.
The Governor was strong upon
\forcelinebreak
The Regulations Act:
\forcelinebreak
The Doctor said that Death was but
\forcelinebreak
A scientific fact:
\forcelinebreak
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
\forcelinebreak
And left a little tract.
And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
\forcelinebreak
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
\forcelinebreak
No hiding-place for fear;
\forcelinebreak
He often said that he was glad
\forcelinebreak
The hangman’s hands were near.
But why he said so strange a thing
\forcelinebreak
No Warder dared to ask:
\forcelinebreak
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
\forcelinebreak
Is given as his task,
\forcelinebreak
Must set a lock upon his lips,
\forcelinebreak
And make his face a mask.
Or else he might be moved, and try
\forcelinebreak
To comfort or console:
\forcelinebreak
And what should Human Pity do
\forcelinebreak
Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
\forcelinebreak
What word of grace in such a place
\forcelinebreak
Could help a brother’s soul?
\bigskip
☀
With slouch and swing around the ring
\forcelinebreak
We trod the Fools’ Parade!
\forcelinebreak
We did not care: we knew we were
\forcelinebreak
The Devil’s Own Brigade:
\forcelinebreak
And shaven head and feet of lead
\forcelinebreak
Make a merry masquerade.
We tore the tarry rope to shreds
\forcelinebreak
With blunt and bleeding nails;
\forcelinebreak
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
\forcelinebreak
And cleaned the shining rails:
\forcelinebreak
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
\forcelinebreak
And clattered with the pails.
We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
\forcelinebreak
We turned the dusty drill:
\forcelinebreak
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
\forcelinebreak
And sweated on the mill:
\forcelinebreak
But in the heart of every man
\forcelinebreak
Terror was lying still.
So still it lay that every day
\forcelinebreak
Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
\forcelinebreak
And we forgot the bitter lot
\forcelinebreak
That waits for fool and knave,
\forcelinebreak
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
\forcelinebreak
We passed an open grave.
With yawning mouth the yellow hole
\forcelinebreak
Gaped for a living thing;
\forcelinebreak
The very mud cried out for blood
\forcelinebreak
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
\forcelinebreak
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
\forcelinebreak
Some prisoner had to swing.
Right in we went, with soul intent
\forcelinebreak
On Death and Dread and Doom:
\forcelinebreak
The hangman, with his little bag,
\forcelinebreak
Went shuffling through the gloom:
\forcelinebreak
And each man trembled as he crept
\forcelinebreak
Into his numbered tomb.
\bigskip
☀
That night the empty corridors
\forcelinebreak
Were full of forms of Fear,
\forcelinebreak
And up and down the iron town
\forcelinebreak
Stole feet we could not hear,
\forcelinebreak
And through the bars that hide the stars
\forcelinebreak
White faces seemed to peer.
He lay as one who lies and dreams
\forcelinebreak
in a pleasant meadow-land,
\forcelinebreak
The watchers watched him as he slept,
\forcelinebreak
And could not understand
\forcelinebreak
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
\forcelinebreak
With a hangman close at hand.
But there is no sleep when men must weep
\forcelinebreak
Who never yet have wept:
\forcelinebreak
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
\forcelinebreak
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
\forcelinebreak
Another’s terror crept.
\bigskip
☀
Alas! it is a fearful thing
\forcelinebreak
To feel another’s guilt!
\forcelinebreak
For, right within, the sword of Sin
\forcelinebreak
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
\forcelinebreak
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
\forcelinebreak
For the blood we had not spilt.
The Warders with their shoes of felt
\forcelinebreak
Crept by each padlocked door,
\forcelinebreak
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
\forcelinebreak
Gray figures on the floor,
\forcelinebreak
And wondered why men knelt to pray
\forcelinebreak
Who never prayed before.
All through the night we knelt and prayed,
\forcelinebreak
Mad mourners of a corse!
\forcelinebreak
The troubled plumes of midnight were
\forcelinebreak
The plumes upon a hearse:
\forcelinebreak
And bitter wine upon a sponge
\forcelinebreak
Was the savour of Remorse.
\bigskip
☀
The gray cock crew, the red cock crew,
\forcelinebreak
But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
\forcelinebreak
In the corners where we lay:
\forcelinebreak
And each evil sprite that walks by night
\forcelinebreak
Before us seemed to play.
They glided past, they glided fast,
\forcelinebreak
Like travellers through a mist:
\forcelinebreak
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
\forcelinebreak
Of delicate turn and twist,
\forcelinebreak
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
\forcelinebreak
The phantoms kept their tryst.
With mop and mow, we saw them go,
\forcelinebreak
Slim shadows hand in hand:
\forcelinebreak
About, about, in ghostly rout
\forcelinebreak
They trod a saraband:
\forcelinebreak
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
\forcelinebreak
Like the wind upon the sand!
With the pirouettes of marionettes,
\forcelinebreak
They tripped on pointed tread:
\forcelinebreak
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
\forcelinebreak
As their grisly masque they led,
\forcelinebreak
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
\forcelinebreak
For they sang to wake the dead.
\emph{“Oho!”} they cried, \emph{“The world is wide,}
\forcelinebreak
\emph{But fettered limbs go lame!}
\emph{And once, or twice, to throw the dice}
\forcelinebreak
\emph{Is a gentlemanly game,}
\forcelinebreak
\emph{But he does not win who plays with Sin}
\forcelinebreak
\emph{In the secret House of Shame.”}
No things of air these antics were,
\forcelinebreak
That frolicked with such glee:
\forcelinebreak
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
\forcelinebreak
And whose feet might not go free,
\forcelinebreak
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
\forcelinebreak
Most terrible to see.
Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
\forcelinebreak
Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
\forcelinebreak
With the mincing step of a demirep
\forcelinebreak
Some sidled up the stairs:
\forcelinebreak
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
\forcelinebreak
Each helped us at our prayers.
\bigskip
☀
The morning wind began to moan,
\forcelinebreak
But still the night went on:
\forcelinebreak
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
\forcelinebreak
Crept till each thread was spun:
\forcelinebreak
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
\forcelinebreak
Of the Justice of the Sun.
The moaning wind went wandering round
\forcelinebreak
The weeping prison-wall:
\forcelinebreak
Till like a wheel of turning steel
\forcelinebreak
We felt the minutes crawl:
\forcelinebreak
O moaning wind! what had we done
\forcelinebreak
To have such a seneschal?
At last I saw the shadowed bars,
\forcelinebreak
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
\forcelinebreak
Move right across the whitewashed wall
\forcelinebreak
That faced my three-plank bed,
\forcelinebreak
And I knew that somewhere in the world
\forcelinebreak
God’s dreadful dawn was red.
\bigskip
☀
At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
\forcelinebreak
At seven all was still,
\forcelinebreak
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
\forcelinebreak
The prison seemed to fill,
\forcelinebreak
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
\forcelinebreak
Had entered in to kill.
He did not pass in purple pomp,
\forcelinebreak
Nor ride a moon-white steed.
\forcelinebreak
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
\forcelinebreak
Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
\forcelinebreak
To do the secret deed.
\bigskip
☀
We were as men who through a fen
\forcelinebreak
Of filthy darkness grope:
\forcelinebreak
We did not dare to breath a prayer,
\forcelinebreak
Or to give our anguish scope:
\forcelinebreak
Something was dead in each of us,
\forcelinebreak
And what was dead was Hope.
For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
\forcelinebreak
And will not swerve aside:
\forcelinebreak
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
\forcelinebreak
It has a deadly stride:
\forcelinebreak
With iron heel it slays the strong,
\forcelinebreak
The monstrous parricide!
\bigskip
☀
We waited for the stroke of eight:
\forcelinebreak
Each tongue was thick with thirst:
\forcelinebreak
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
\forcelinebreak
That makes a man accursed,
\forcelinebreak
And Fate will use a running noose
\forcelinebreak
For the best man and the worst.
We had no other thing to do,
\forcelinebreak
Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
\forcelinebreak
Quiet we sat and dumb:
\forcelinebreak
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
\forcelinebreak
Like a madman on a drum!
\bigskip
☀
With sudden shock the prison-clock
\forcelinebreak
Smote on the shivering air,
\forcelinebreak
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
\forcelinebreak
Of impotent despair,
\forcelinebreak
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
\forcelinebreak
From some leper in his lair.
And as one sees most fearful things
\forcelinebreak
In the crystal of a dream,
\forcelinebreak
We saw the greasy hempen rope
\forcelinebreak
Hooked to the blackened beam,
\forcelinebreak
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
\forcelinebreak
Strangled into a scream.
And all the woe that moved him so
\forcelinebreak
That he gave that bitter cry,
\forcelinebreak
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
\forcelinebreak
None knew so well as I:
\forcelinebreak
For he who lives more lives than one
\forcelinebreak
More deaths than one must die.
\section{IV}
There is no chapel on the day
\forcelinebreak
On which they hang a man:
\forcelinebreak
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
\forcelinebreak
Or his face is far too wan,
\forcelinebreak
Or there is that written in his eyes
\forcelinebreak
Which none should look upon.
So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
\forcelinebreak
And then they rang the bell,
\forcelinebreak
And the Warders with their jingling keys
\forcelinebreak
Opened each listening cell,
\forcelinebreak
And down the iron stair we tramped,
\forcelinebreak
Each from his separate Hell.
Out into God’s sweet air we went,
\forcelinebreak
But not in wonted way,
\forcelinebreak
For this man’s face was white with fear,
\forcelinebreak
And that man’s face was gray,
\forcelinebreak
And I never saw sad men who looked
\forcelinebreak
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw sad men who looked
\forcelinebreak
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
\forcelinebreak
We prisoners called the sky,
\forcelinebreak
And at every careless cloud that passed
\forcelinebreak
In happy freedom by.
But there were those amongst us all
\forcelinebreak
Who walked with downcast head,
\forcelinebreak
And knew that, had each got his due,
\forcelinebreak
They should have died instead:
\forcelinebreak
He had but killed a thing that lived,
\forcelinebreak
Whilst they had killed the dead.
For he who sins a second time
\forcelinebreak
Wakes a dead soul to pain,
\forcelinebreak
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
\forcelinebreak
And makes it bleed again,
\forcelinebreak
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
\forcelinebreak
And makes it bleed in vain!
\bigskip
☀
Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
\forcelinebreak
With crooked arrows starred,
\forcelinebreak
Silently we went round and round
\forcelinebreak
The slippery asphalte yard;
\forcelinebreak
Silently we went round and round,
\forcelinebreak
And no man spoke a word.
Silently we went round and round,
\forcelinebreak
And through each hollow mind
\forcelinebreak
The Memory of dreadful things
\forcelinebreak
Rushed like a dreadful wind,
\forcelinebreak
And Horror stalked before each man,
\forcelinebreak
And Terror crept behind.
\bigskip
☀
The Warders strutted up and down,
\forcelinebreak
And kept their herd of brutes,
\forcelinebreak
Their uniforms were spick and span,
\forcelinebreak
And they wore their Sunday suits,
\forcelinebreak
But we knew the work they had been at,
\forcelinebreak
By the quicklime on their boots.
For where a grave had opened wide,
\forcelinebreak
There was no grave at all:
\forcelinebreak
Only a stretch of mud and sand
\forcelinebreak
By the hideous prison-wall,
\forcelinebreak
And a little heap of burning lime,
\forcelinebreak
That the man should have his pall.
For he has a pall, this wretched man,
\forcelinebreak
Such as few men can claim:
\forcelinebreak
Deep down below a prison-yard,
\forcelinebreak
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
\forcelinebreak
Wrapt in a sheet of flame!
And all the while the burning lime
\forcelinebreak
Eats flesh and bone away,
\forcelinebreak
It eats the brittle bone by night,
\forcelinebreak
And the soft flesh by day,
\forcelinebreak
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
\forcelinebreak
But it eats the heart alway.
\bigskip
☀
For three long years they will not sow
\forcelinebreak
Or root or seedling there:
\forcelinebreak
For three long years the unblessed spot
\forcelinebreak
Will sterile be and bare,
\forcelinebreak
And look upon the wondering sky
\forcelinebreak
With unreproachful stare.
They think a murderer’s heart would taint
\forcelinebreak
Each simple seed they sow.
\forcelinebreak
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
\forcelinebreak
Is kindlier than men know,
\forcelinebreak
And the red rose would but blow more red,
\forcelinebreak
The white rose whiter blow.
Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
\forcelinebreak
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
\forcelinebreak
Christ brings His will to light,
\forcelinebreak
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
\forcelinebreak
Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?
\bigskip
☀
But neither milk-white rose nor red
\forcelinebreak
May bloom in prison air;
\forcelinebreak
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
\forcelinebreak
Are what they give us there:
\forcelinebreak
For flowers have been known to heal
\forcelinebreak
A common man’s despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white,
\forcelinebreak
Petal by petal, fall
\forcelinebreak
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
\forcelinebreak
By the hideous prison-wall,
\forcelinebreak
To tell the men who tramp the yard
\forcelinebreak
That God’s Son died for all.
\bigskip
☀
Yet though the hideous prison-wall
\forcelinebreak
Still hems him round and round,
\forcelinebreak
And a spirit may not walk by night
\forcelinebreak
That is with fetters bound,
\forcelinebreak
And a spirit may but weep that lies
\forcelinebreak
In such unholy ground.
He is at peace—this wretched man—
\forcelinebreak
At peace, or will be soon:
\forcelinebreak
There is no thing to make him mad,
\forcelinebreak
Nor does Terror walk at noon,
\forcelinebreak
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
\forcelinebreak
Has neither Sun nor Moon.
\bigskip
☀
They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
\forcelinebreak
They did not even toll
\forcelinebreak
A requiem that might have brought
\forcelinebreak
Rest to his startled soul,
\forcelinebreak
But hurriedly they took him out,
\forcelinebreak
And hid him in a hole.
They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
\forcelinebreak
And gave him to the flies:
\forcelinebreak
They mocked the swollen purple throat,
\forcelinebreak
And the stark and staring eyes:
\forcelinebreak
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
\forcelinebreak
in which their convict lies.
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
\forcelinebreak
By his dishonoured grave:
\forcelinebreak
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
\forcelinebreak
That Christ for sinners gave,
\forcelinebreak
Because the man was one of those
\forcelinebreak
Whom Christ came down to save.
Yet all is well; he has but passed
\forcelinebreak
To Life’s appointed bourne:
\forcelinebreak
And alien tears will fill for him
\forcelinebreak
Pity’s long-broken urn,
\forcelinebreak
For his mourners will be outcast men,
\forcelinebreak
And outcasts always mourn.
\section{V}
I know not whether Laws be right,
\forcelinebreak
Or whether Laws be wrong;
\forcelinebreak
All that we know who lie in gaol
\forcelinebreak
Is that the wall is strong;
\forcelinebreak
And that each day is like a year,
\forcelinebreak
A year whose days are long.
But this I know, that every Law
\forcelinebreak
That men have made for Man,
\forcelinebreak
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
\forcelinebreak
And the sad world began,
\forcelinebreak
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
\forcelinebreak
With a most evil fan.
This too I know—and wise it were
\forcelinebreak
If each could know the same—
\forcelinebreak
That every prison that men build
\forcelinebreak
Is built with bricks of shame,
\forcelinebreak
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
\forcelinebreak
How men their brothers maim.
With bars they blur the gracious moon,
\forcelinebreak
And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
\forcelinebreak
For in it things are done
\forcelinebreak
That Son of God nor son of Man
\forcelinebreak
Ever should look upon!
\bigskip
☀
The vilest deeds like poison weeds
\forcelinebreak
Bloom well in prison-air:
\forcelinebreak
It is only what is good in Man
\forcelinebreak
That wastes and withers there:
\forcelinebreak
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
\forcelinebreak
And the Warder is Despair.
For they starve the little frightened child
\forcelinebreak
Till it weeps both night and day:
\forcelinebreak
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
\forcelinebreak
And gibe the old and gray,
\forcelinebreak
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
\forcelinebreak
And none a word may say.
Each narrow cell in which we dwell
\forcelinebreak
Is a foul and dark latrine,
\forcelinebreak
And the fetid breath of living Death
\forcelinebreak
Chokes up each grated screen,
\forcelinebreak
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
\forcelinebreak
In Humanity’s machine.
The brackish water that we drink
\forcelinebreak
Creeps with a loathsome slime,
\forcelinebreak
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
\forcelinebreak
Is full of chalk and lime,
\forcelinebreak
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
\forcelinebreak
Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.
\bigskip
☀
But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
\forcelinebreak
Like asp with adder fight,
\forcelinebreak
We have little care of prison fare,
\forcelinebreak
For what chills and kills outright
\forcelinebreak
Is that every stone one lifts by day
\forcelinebreak
Becomes one’s heart by night.
With midnight always in one’s heart,
\forcelinebreak
And twilight in one’s cell,
\forcelinebreak
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
\forcelinebreak
Each in his separate Hell,
\forcelinebreak
And the silence is more awful far
\forcelinebreak
Than the sound of a brazen bell.
And never a human voice comes near
\forcelinebreak
To speak a gentle word:
\forcelinebreak
And the eye that watches through the door
\forcelinebreak
Is pitiless and hard:
\forcelinebreak
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
\forcelinebreak
With soul and body marred.
And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
\forcelinebreak
Degraded and alone:
\forcelinebreak
And some men curse, and some men weep,
\forcelinebreak
And some men make no moan:
\forcelinebreak
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
\forcelinebreak
And break the heart of stone.
\bigskip
☀
And every human heart that breaks,
\forcelinebreak
In prison-cell or yard,
\forcelinebreak
Is as that broken box that gave
\forcelinebreak
Its treasure to the Lord,
\forcelinebreak
And filled the unclean leper’s house
\forcelinebreak
With the scent of costliest nard.
Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
\forcelinebreak
And peace of pardon win!
\forcelinebreak
How else may man make straight his plan
\forcelinebreak
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
\forcelinebreak
How else but through a broken heart
\forcelinebreak
May Lord Christ enter in?
And he of the swollen purple throat,
\forcelinebreak
And the stark and staring eyes,
\forcelinebreak
Waits for the holy hands that took
\forcelinebreak
The Thief to Paradise;
\forcelinebreak
And a broken and a contrite heart
\forcelinebreak
The Lord will not despise.
The man in red who reads the Law
\forcelinebreak
Gave him three weeks of life,
\forcelinebreak
Three little weeks in which to heal
\forcelinebreak
His soul of his soul’s strife,
\forcelinebreak
And cleanse from every blot of blood
\forcelinebreak
The hand that held the knife.
And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
\forcelinebreak
The hand that held the steel:
\forcelinebreak
For only blood can wipe out blood,
\forcelinebreak
And only tears can heal:
\forcelinebreak
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
\forcelinebreak
Became Christ’s snow-white seal.
\section{VI}
In Reading gaol by Reading town
\forcelinebreak
There is a pit of shame,
\forcelinebreak
And in it lies a wretched man
\forcelinebreak
Eaten by teeth of flame,
\forcelinebreak
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
\forcelinebreak
And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
\forcelinebreak
In silence let him lie:
\forcelinebreak
No need to waste the foolish tear,
\forcelinebreak
Or heave the windy sigh:
\forcelinebreak
The man had killed the thing he loved,
\forcelinebreak
And so he had to die.
And all men kill the thing they love,
\forcelinebreak
By all let this be heard,
\forcelinebreak
Some do it with a bitter look,
\forcelinebreak
Some with a flattering word,
\forcelinebreak
The coward does it with a kiss,
\forcelinebreak
The brave man with a sword!
% begin final page
\clearpage
% if we are on an odd page, add another one, otherwise when imposing
% the page would be odd on an even one.
\ifthispageodd{\strut\thispagestyle{empty}\clearpage}{}
% new page for the colophon
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{center}
The Anarchist Library (Mirror)
\smallskip
Anti-Copyright
\bigskip
\includegraphics[width=0.25\textwidth]{logo-yu.pdf}
\bigskip
\end{center}
\strut
\vfill
\begin{center}
Oscar Wilde
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
1897
\bigskip
https:\Slash{}\Slash{}en.wikisource.org\Slash{}wiki\Slash{}The\_Ballad\_of\_Reading\_Gaol
\bigskip
\textbf{usa.anarchistlibraries.net}
\end{center}
% end final page with colophon
\end{document}
% No format ID passed.