Chapter 2

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 will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn

V

I KNOW not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother’s life, And the sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were If each could know the same— That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon, And blind the goodly sun: And they do well to hide their Hell, For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of Man Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds, Bloom well in prison-air; It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair.

For they starve the little frightened child Till it weeps both night and day: And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And gibe the old and grey, And some grow mad, and all grow bad, And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is a foul and dark latrine, And the fetid breath of living Death Chokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink Creeps with a loathsome slime, And the bitter bread they weigh in scales Is full of chalk and lime, And Sleep will not lie down, but walks Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst Like asp with adder fight, We have little care of prison fare, For what chills and kills outright Is that every stone one lifts by day Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart, And twilight in one’s cell, We turn the crank, or tear the rope, Each in his separate Hell, And the silence is more awful far Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near To speak a gentle word: And the eye that watches through the door Is pitiless and hard: And by all forgot, we rot and rot, With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God’s eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper’s house With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat, And the stark and staring eyes, Waits for the holy hands that took The Thief to Paradise; And a broken and a contrite heart The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul’s strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain Became Christ’s snow-white seal.

VI

IN Reading gaol by Reading town There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wretched man Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning winding-sheet he lies, And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie: No need to waste the foolish tear, Or heave the windy sigh: The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all 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!

APPENDIX THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

A VERSION BASED ON THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM

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 fellow’s 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 space.

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 the 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.

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.

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 In God’s sweet world 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.

III

IN Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, And the dripping wall is high, So it was there he took the air Beneath the leaden sky, And by each side a Warder walked, For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched His anguish night and day; Who watched him when he rose to weep, And when he crouched to pray; Who watched him lest himself should rob Their scaffold of its prey.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe, And drank his quart of beer: His soul was resolute, and held No hiding-place for fear; He often said that he was glad The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing No Warder dared to ask: For he to whom a watcher’s doom Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his lips, And make his face a mask.

With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools’ Parade! We did not care: we knew we were The Devil’s Own Brigade: And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work, We passed an open grave.

Right in we went, with soul intent On Death and Dread and Doom: The hangman, with his little bag, Went shuffling through the gloom: And each man trembled as he crept Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer.

But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of pain Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing To feel another’s guilt! For, right within, the sword of Sin Pierced to its poisoned hilt, And as molten lead were the tears we shed For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt Crept by each padlocked door, And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, Grey figures on the floor, And wondered why men knelt to pray Who never prayed before.

The morning wind began to moan, But still the night went on: Through its giant loom the web of gloom Crept till each thread was spun: And, as we prayed, we grew afraid Of the Justice of the Sun.

At last I saw the shadowed bars, Like a lattice wrought in lead, Move right across the whitewashed wall That faced my three-plank bed, And I knew that somewhere in the world God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still, But the sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill, For the Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp, Nor ride a moon-white steed. Three yards of cord and a sliding board Are all the gallows’ need: So with rope of shame the Herald came To do the secret deed.

We waited for the stroke of eight: Each tongue was thick with thirst: For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate That makes a man accursed, And Fate will use a running noose For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to come: So, like things of stone in a valley lone, Quiet we sat and dumb: But each man’s heart beat thick and quick, Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock Smote on the shivering air, And from all the gaol rose up a wail Of impotent despair, Like the sound that frightened marshes hear From some leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream, We saw the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam, And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry, And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.

IV

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 grey, 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 careless cloud that passed In happy 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 kept 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!

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 blow 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.

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.

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 will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn.

POEMS AVE IMPERATRIX

SET in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of fight, And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England’s wars Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, To battle with the storm that mars The stars of England’s chivalry.

The brazen-throated clarion blows Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, And the high steeps of Indian snows Shake to the tread of armèd men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes To tell how he hath heard afar The measured roll of English drums Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, England with bare and bloody feet Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height, Grey pillar of the Indian sky, Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight Our wingèd dogs of Victory?

The almond-groves of Samarcand, Bokhara, where red lilies blow, And Oxus, by whose yellow sand The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

And on from thence to Ispahan, The gilded garden of the sun, Whence the long dusty caravan Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabool Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet, Whose marble tanks are ever full With water for the noonday heat:

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar A little maid Circassian Is led, a present from the Czar Unto some old and bearded Khan,—

Here have our wild war-eagles flown, And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; But the sad dove, that sits alone In England—she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean To greet her love with love-lit eyes: Down in some treacherous black ravine, Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see The lingering wistful children wait To climb upon their father’s knee; And in each house made desolate

Pale women who have lost their lord Will kiss the relics of the slain— Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls, And many in the Afghan land, And many where the Ganges falls Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie, And others in the seas which are The portals to the East, or by The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep! O silence of the sunless day! O still ravine! O stormy deep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore Possess the flower of English land— Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound The whole round world with nets of gold, If hidden in our heart is found The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride, Pine-forest-like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? Where is our English chivalry? Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send! O wasted dust! O senseless clay! Is this the end! is this the end!

Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead To vex their solemn slumber so; Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall descry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these crimson seas of war.

TO MY WIFE WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS

I CAN write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

MAGDALEN WALKS

[_After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity College_, _Dublin_, _in 1874_, _Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford_, _where he obtained a demyship at Magdalen College_. _He is the only real poet on the books of that institution_.]