Ballad of Reading Gaol |
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adder-bitten root Amongst the Trial BALLAD OF READING bitter black dock's dreadful blood blood and wine call the sky Chaplain Christ cricket dance to lutes dead dead man walked dock's dreadful pen elm have pleasant Fear they filled fearful thing fettered limbs go glad The hangman's grisly masque grotesques made ara hearse heart held in gyves held No hiding-place hideous prison-wall holy night killed the thing knave knew little tent living thing looked So wistfully loud they sang lutes masque they led night and day outcast pace and loathsome pirouettes of marionettes Pity do Pent prison READING GAOL round and round rout They trod shame side a Warder sleep Slim shadows hand soul intent souls in pain sprite STANFORD UNIVERSITY sweet to dance tears tent of blue thing he loved thing No Warder tramped troubled plumes twice a day wake the dead walks by night watched him lest wistful eye worldlings try
Popular passages
Page 12 - 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.
Page 19 - In which their 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.
Page 11 - 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!
Page 16 - 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.
Page 3 - 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.
Page 8 - 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...
Page 10 - Of filthy darkness grope : We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or to give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.
Page 2 - 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!
Page 24 - 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.