The Ballad of Reading Gaol

 
               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.
 
 
               They stripped him of his canvas 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 their convict lies.
 
 
               The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
                 By his dishonored 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 mourner 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 day 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 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!
 

Version Two

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 gray;
               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 haunted 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 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 feel that sickening thirst
                 That sands one's throat, before
               The hangman with his gardener's gloves
                 Comes 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 anguish 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.