The Ballad of Reading Gaol: IV
- III
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol
- V
-
- There is no chapel on the day
- On which they hang a man:
- The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
- Or his face is far too wan,
- Or there is that written in his eyes
- Which none should look upon.
-
- So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
- And then they rang the bell,
- And the warders with their jingling keys
- Opened each listening cell,
- And down the iron stair we tramped,
- Each from his separate Hell.
-
- Out into God’s sweet air we went,
- But not in wonted way,
- For this man’s face was white with fear,
- And that man’s face was gray,
- And I never saw sad men who looked
- So wistfully at the day.
-
- I never saw sad men who looked
- With such a wistful eye
- Upon that little tent of blue
- We prisoners called the sky,
- And at every happy cloud that passed
- In such strange freedom by.
-
- But there were those amongst us all
- Who walked with downcast head,
- And knew that, had each got his due,
- They should have died instead:
- He had but killed a thing that lived,
- Whilst they had killed the dead.
-
- For he who sins a second time
- Wakes a dead soul to pain,
- And draws it from its spotted shroud
- And makes it bleed again,
- And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
- And makes it bleed in vain!
-
- Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
- With crooked arrows starred,
- Silently we went round and round
- The slippery asphalte yard;
- Silently we went round and round,
- And no man spoke a word.
-
- Silently we went round and round,
- And through each hollow mind
- The Memory of dreadful things
- Rushed like a dreadful wind,
- And Horror stalked before each man,
- And Terror crept behind.
-
- The warders strutted up and down,
- And watched their herd of brutes,
- Their uniforms were spick and span,
- And they wore their Sunday suits,
- But we knew the work they had been at,
- By the quicklime on their boots.
-
- For where a grave had opened wide,
- There was no grave at all:
- Only a stretch of mud and sand
- By the hideous prison-wall,
- And a little heap of burning lime,
- That the man should have his pall.
-
- For he has a pall, this wretched man,
- Such as few men can claim:
- Deep down below a prison-yard,
- Naked, for greater shame,
- He lies, with fetters on each foot,
- Wrapt in a sheet of flame!
-
- And all the while the burning lime
- Eats flesh and bone away,
- It eats the brittle bones by night,
- And the soft flesh by day,
- It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
- But it eats the heart alway.
-
- For three long years they will not sow
- Or root or seedling there:
- For three long years the unblessed spot
- Will sterile be and bare,
- And look upon the wondering sky
- With unreproachful stare.
-
- They think a murderer’s heart would taint
- Each simple seed they sow.
- It is not true! God’s kindly earth
- Is kindlier than men know,
- And the red rose would but glow more red,
- The white rose whiter blow.
-
- Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
- Out of his heart a white!
- For who can say by what strange way,
- Christ brings His will to light,
- Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
- Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?
-
- But neither milk-white rose nor red
- May bloom in prison air;
- The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
- Are what they give us there:
- For flowers have been known to heal
- A common man’s despair.
-
- So never will wine-red rose or white,
- Petal by petal, fall
- On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
- By the hideous prison-wall,
- To tell the men who tramp the yard
- That God’s Son died for all.
-
- Yet though the hideous prison-wall
- Still hems him round and round,
- And a spirit may not walk by night
- That is with fetters bound,
- And a spirit may but weep that lies
- In such unholy ground,
-
- He is at peace—this wretched man—
- At peace, or will be soon:
- There is no thing to make him mad,
- Nor does Terror walk at noon,
- For the lampless Earth in which he lies
- Has neither Sun nor Moon.
-
- They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
- They did not even toll
- A requiem that might have brought
- Rest to his startled soul,
- But hurriedly they took him out,
- And hid him in a hole.
-
- The warders stripped him of his clothes,
- And gave him to the flies:
- They mocked the swollen purple throat,
- And the stark and staring eyes:
- And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
- In which the convict lies.
-
- The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
- By his dishonoured grave:
- Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
- That Christ for sinners gave,
- Because the man was one of those
- Whom Christ came down to save.
-
- Yet all is well; he has but passed
- To Life’s appointed bourne:
- And alien tears will fill for him
- Pity’s long-broken urn,
- For his mourners be outcast men,
- And outcasts always mourn.
- III
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol
- V
