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! And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, They think a murderer's heart would taint. 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. 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. God's kindly earth Is kindlier than men know,And the red rose would but blow more red, The white rose whiter blow. 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. I only knew what hunted thought Quickened his step, and whyHe looked upon the garish day With such a wistful eye;The man had killed the thing he loved And so he had to die. He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land,The watcher watched him as he slept, And could not understandHow one could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand? 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. When Oscar Wilde was serving part of his sentence in Reading Gaol (which inspired his Ballad of the same name) he could hardly have contemplated life as we know it in 2020. 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. Like « previous 1 2 next » All Quotes Quotes By Oscar Wilde. 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. I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky,And at every wandering cloud that trailed Its raveled fleeces by. Ah! And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And the bitter bread they weigh in scales, And the eye that watches through the door. We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to com 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. Dear Christ! He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands. 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? All through the night we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corpse!The troubled plumes of midnight were The plumes upon a hearse:And bitter wine upon a sponge Was the savior of Remorse. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast,I vex my heart alone She is at rest. The first is that Wilde claimed that something in him was killed by his incarceration and the second is that he is one of the best and brightest writers of his era. Ah! The Ballad of Reading Gaol (gaol is the British spelling of jail) narrates the story of an execution that occurred while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in the late 1890s. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem b... Heres a virtual movie of Oscar Wilde reading the first 7 stanzas of his much loved poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol". But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear. And there, till Christ call forth the dead. During his imprisonment, a hanging took place. 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! 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. Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb. Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is 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 moaning wind went wandering round The weeping prison-wall:Till like a wheel of turning-steel We felt the minutes crawl:O moaning wind! And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away,It eats the brittle bone by night, And the soft flesh by the day,It eats the flesh and bones by turns, But it eats the heart alway. The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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. 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. I never saw sad men who looked With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue We prisoners called the sky,And at every careless cloud that passed In happy freedom by. The cock crew, the red cock crew, But never came the day:And crooked shape of Terror crouched, In the corners where we lay:And each evil sprite that walks by night Before us seemed to play. Readers: Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry, Neil Tennant, Bette Bourne 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! It was inspired by the two years Wilde spent in the jail in Reading, Eng., after being convicted of sodomy. 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. 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. 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. Small H/c This Edition Printed After 1904… Read more. 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. 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. 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. The Ballad of Reading Gaol Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854 - 1900) Original Text: Oscar ... 6.1 In Reading gaol by Reading town. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. Show Details. July 30 2017, 8pm. He had been imprisoned in Reading Goal for gross indecency for the previous two years. 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. Download OSCAR WILDE's The Ballad of Reading Gaol for your kindle, tablet, IPAD, PC or mobile 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. 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. They hanged him as a beast is hanged: They did not even tollA reguiem that might have brought Rest to his startled soul,But hurriedly they took him out, And hid him in a hole. Ah! 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. 6.4 Eaten by teeth of flame, 6.5 In a burning winding-sheet he lies, 6.6 And his grave has got no name. And the red rose would but glow more red, On that stretch of mud and sand that lies, And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud, And bound with bars lest Christ should see, For they starve the little frightened child. All through the night we knelt and prayed. Let’s take Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ as an example. 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