The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Version One

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 place
 
 
               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 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 a 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.
 
 
               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 raveled 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.
 
 
               And 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.
 
 
               For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
                 That in the spring-time shoot:
               But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
                 With its adder-bitten root,
               And, green or dry, a man must die
                 Before it bears its fruit!
 
 
               The loftiest place is that 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
                 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 were we:
               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.
 
 
               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.
 
 
               The Governor was strong upon
                 The Regulations Act:
               The Doctor said that Death was but
                 A scientific fact:
               And twice a day the Chaplain called
                 And left a little tract.
 
 
               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.
 
 
               Or else he might be moved, and try
                 To comfort or console:
               And what should Human Pity do
                 Pent up in Murderers' Hole?
               What word of grace in such a place
                 Could help a brother's soul?
 
 
               With slouch and swing around the ring
                 We trod the Fool's 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.
 
 
               With yawning mouth the yellow hole
                 Gaped for a living thing;
               The very mud cried out for blood
                 To the thirsty asphalte ring:
               And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
                 Some prisoner had to swing.
 
 
               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.