The Ballad of Reading Gaol: II

  1. I
  2. The Ballad of Reading Gaol
  3. III
    • Six weeks the guardsman walked the yard,
    • In the suit of shabby gray:
    • His cricket cap was on his head,
    • And his step was 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 ravelled 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.
    • For 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 such a debt to pay.

    • The oak and elm have pleasant leaves
    • That in the spring-time shoot:
    • But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
    • With its alder-bitten root,
    • And, green or dry, a man must die
    • Before it bears its fruit!
    • The loftiest place is the seat of grace
    • For which all worldlings try:
    • But who would stand in hempen band
    • Upon a scaffold high,
    • And through a murderer’s collar take
    • His last look at the sky?
    • It is sweet to dance to violins
    • When Love and Life are fair:
    • To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
    • Is delicate and rare:
    • But it is not sweet with nimble feet
    • To dance upon the air!
    • So with curious eyes and sick surmise
    • We watched him day by day,
    • And wondered if each one of us
    • Would end the self-same way,
    • For none can tell to what red Hell
    • His sightless soul may stray.
    • At last the dead man walked no more
    • Amongst the Trial Men,
    • And I knew that he was standing up
    • In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
    • And that never would I see his face
    • For weal or woe again.
    • Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
    • We had crossed each other’s way:
    • But we made no sign, we said no word,
    • We had no word to say;
    • For we did not meet in the holy night,
    • But in the shameful day.
    • A prison wall was round us both,
    • Two outcast men we were:
    • The world had thrust us from its heart,
    • And God from out His care:
    • And the iron gin that waits for Sin
    • Had caught us in its snare.
  1. I
  2. The Ballad of Reading Gaol
  3. III