The Ballad Of Reading Gaol Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE E FGHGIG JKGKLK LEBEME NOPOQ RSASNS TEKEIE UVWVXY ZA2B2A2C2A2 D2EE2EUE AF2G2F2H2F2 JKI2KJ2K K2AL2AM2A N2O2P2P2Q2R2Q2 S2H2UH2UH2 T2GU2GUG V2UKUW2U E X2KGKLK LEBEY2E BV2Z2V2PV2 I2A3B3A3A3A3 A3OA3OUO UKWKK2K UC3K2C3EC3 UED3EE3E UV2UV2F3V2 UKUKG3K H2A3H3A3UA3 AKVKL2K I3DJ3V2A3V2 E X2EV2EK3E L3KI2KJ2K A3M3N3M3O3M3 P3Q3B3Q3R3Q3 OS3AS3US3 EU2BU2UU2 OT3DT3GT3 UUUUU3U UV3UV3A3V3 KW3X3W3Y3W3 U2OZ3OV2O MAA4AB4A UQ3A3T2UQ3 UD3B4D3I2D3 I2B4W3B4A3B4 OC4A3C4GC4 D4H2E4H2KH2 T3UDUF4U BKG4KL2K H4I4A3I4UI4 QD3J4J4UJ4 UJ4T2J4K4J4 J4AUAA3 DK2UK2UK2 J4UI2UK2U A3A3AA3J4A3 J4L4SL4A3L4 UJ4L4J4J4J4 UL4OL4M4L4 I2J4J4J4AJ4 A3I2K2I2UI2 KJ4D2J4D2J4 J4J4J4J4UJ4 J4AA3AN4A O4K2L4K2K2K2 UAI2AK2A UK2UK2A3K2 W3 J4A3N4A3UA3 A3L4UL4J4L4 J4J4K2J4J4J4 J4K2J4K2J4K2 L4J4J4J4J4J4 AA3J4A3J4A3 P4J4J4J4J4J4 J4J4UJ4A3J4 A3UA3UJ4U J4L4J4L4AL4 A3AJ4AJ4A AJ4J4J4UJ4 UK2J4K2K2K2 J4UQ4UJ4U UJ4J4J4K2J4 J4K2J4K2L4K2 J4L4UL4J4L4 L4J4J4J4UJ4 A3A3J4A3UA3 J4L4J4L4J4L4 UUJ4UJ4U J4W3UW3UW3 J4A3AA3A3A3 W3 J4D2L4D2K2D2 L4A3W3A3W3A3 K2AJ4AW3A A3A3L4A3A3A3 UK2A3K2J4K2 J4J4L4J4J4J4 L4A3M4A3J4A3 R4AUAUA J4J4K2J4J4J4 J4L4I2L4K2L4 K2J4K2J4J4J4 A3A3I2A3J4A3 UJ4W3J4UJ4 E3A3A3A3J4A3 J4UWUJ4U L4W3L4W3J4W3 J4L4J4L4A3L4 K2 A3AA3AUA J4K2K2K2J4K2 W3J4WJ4UJ4

In memoriam	A
C T W	B
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards	C
obiit H M prison Reading Berkshire	D
July	E
	-
I	E
	-
He did not wear his scarlet coat	F
For blood and wine are red	G
And blood and wine were on his hands	H
When they found him with the dead	G
The poor dead woman whom he loved	I
And murdered in her bed	G
	-
He walked amongst the Trial Men	J
In a suit of shabby grey	K
A cricket cap was on his head	G
And his step seemed light and gay	K
But I never saw a man who looked	L
So wistfully at the day	K
	-
I never saw a man who looked	L
With such a wistful eye	E
Upon that little tent of blue	B
Which prisoners call the sky	E
And at every drifting cloud that went	M
With sails of silver by	E
	-
I walked with other souls in pain	N
Within another ring	O
And was wondering if the man had done	P
A great or little thing	O
When a voice behind me whispered low	Q
'That fellow's got to swing '	-
	-
Dear Christ the very prison walls	R
Suddenly seemed to reel	S
And the sky above my head became	A
Like a casque of scorching steel	S
And though I was a soul in pain	N
My pain I could not feel	S
	-
I only knew what hunted thought	T
Quickened his step and why	E
He looked upon the garish day	K
With such a wistful eye	E
The man had killed the thing he loved	I
And so he had to die	E
	-
Yet each man kills the thing he loves	U
By each let this be heard	V
Some do it with a bitter look	W
Some with a flattering word	V
The coward does it with a kiss	X
The brave man with a sword	Y
	-
Some kill their love when they are young	Z
And some when they are old	A2
Some strangle with the hands of Lust	B2
Some with the hands of Gold	A2
The kindest use a knife because	C2
The dead so soon grow cold	A2
	-
Some love too little some too long	D2
Some sell and others buy	E
Some do the deed with many tears	E2
And some without a sigh	E
For each man kills the thing he loves	U
Yet each man does not die	E
	-
He does not die a death of shame	A
On a day of dark disgrace	F2
Nor have a noose about his neck	G2
Nor a cloth upon his face	F2
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor	H2
Into an empty space	F2
	-
He does not sit with silent men	J
Who watch him night and day	K
Who watch him when he tries to weep	I2
And when he tries to pray	K
Who watch him lest himself should rob	J2
The prison of its prey	K
	-
He does not wake at dawn to see	K2
Dread figures throng his room	A
The shivering Chaplain robed in white	L2
The Sheriff stern with gloom	A
And the Governor all in shiny black	M2
With the yellow face of Doom	A
	-
He does not rise in piteous haste	N2
To put on convict clothes	O2
While some coarse mouthed Doctor gloats	P2
and notes	P2
Each new and nerve twitched pose	Q2
Fingering a watch whose little ticks	R2
Are like horrible hammer blows	Q2
	-
He does not know that sickening thirst	S2
That sands one's throat before	H2
The hangman with his gardener's gloves	U
Slips through the padded door	H2
And binds one with three leathern thongs	U
That the throat may thirst no more	H2
	-
He does not bend his head to hear	T2
The Burial Office read	G
Nor while the terror of his soul	U2
Tells him he is not dead	G
Cross his own coffin as he moves	U
Into the hideous shed	G
	-
He does not stare upon the air	V2
Through a little roof of glass	U
He does not pray with lips of clay	K
For his agony to pass	U
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek	W2
The kiss of Caiaphas	U
	-
II	E
	-
Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard	X2
In the suit of shabby grey	K
His cricket cap was on his head	G
And his step seemed light and gay	K
But I never saw a man who looked	L
So wistfully at the day	K
	-
I never saw a man who looked	L
With such a wistful eye	E
Upon that little tent of blue	B
Which prisoners call the sky	E
And at every wandering cloud that trailed	Y2
Its ravelled fleeces by	E
	-
He did not wring his hands as do	B
Those witless men who dare	V2
To try to rear the changeling Hope	Z2
In the cave of black Despair	V2
He only looked upon the sun	P
And drank the morning air	V2
	-
He did not wring his hands nor weep	I2
Nor did he peek or pine	A3
But he drank the air as though it held	B3
Some healthful anodyne	A3
With open mouth he drank the sun	A3
As though it had been wine	A3
	-
And I and all the souls in pain	A3
Who tramped the other ring	O
Forgot if we ourselves had done	A3
A great or little thing	O
And watched with gaze of dull amaze	U
The man who had to swing	O
	-
And strange it was to see him pass	U
With a step so light and gay	K
And strange it was to see him look	W
So wistfully at the day	K
And strange it was to think that he	K2
Had such a debt to pay	K
	-
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves	U
That in the springtime shoot	C3
But grim to see is the gallows tree	K2
With its adder bitten root	C3
And green or dry a man must die	E
Before it bears its fruit	C3
	-
The loftiest place is that seat of grace	U
For which all worldlings try	E
But who would stand in hempen band	D3
Upon a scaffold high	E
And through a murderer's collar take	E3
His last look at the sky	E
	-
It is sweet to dance to violins	U
When Love and Life are fair	V2
To dance to flutes to dance to lutes	U
Is delicate and rare	V2
But it is not sweet with nimble feet	F3
To dance upon the air	V2
	-
So with curious eyes and sick surmise	U
We watched him day by day	K
And wondered if each one of us	U
Would end the self same way	K
For none can tell to what red Hell	G3
His sightless soul may stray	K
	-
At last the dead man walked no more	H2
Amongst the Trial Men	A3
And I knew that he was standing up	H3
In the black dock's dreadful pen	A3
And that never would I see his face	U
In God's sweet world again	A3
	-
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm	A
We had crossed each other's way	K
But we made no sign we said no word	V
We had no word to say	K
For we did not meet in the holy night	L2
But in the shameful day	K
	-
A prison wall was round us both	I3
Two outcast men we were	D
The world had thrust us from its heart	J3
And God from out His care	V2
And the iron gin that waits for Sin	A3
Had caught us in its snare	V2
	-
III	E
	-
In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard	X2
And the dripping wall is high	E
So it was there he took the air	V2
Beneath the leaden sky	E
And by each side a Warder walked	K3
For fear the man might die	E
	-
Or else he sat with those who watched	L3
His anguish night and day	K
Who watched him when he rose to weep	I2
And when he crouched to pray	K
Who watched him lest himself should rob	J2
Their scaffold of its prey	K
	-
The Governor was strong upon	A3
The Regulations Act	M3
The Doctor said that Death was but	N3
A scientific fact	M3
And twice a day the Chaplain called	O3
And left a little tract	M3
	-
And twice a day he smoked his pipe	P3
And drank his quart of beer	Q3
His soul was resolute and held	B3
No hiding place for fear	Q3
He often said that he was glad	R3
The hangman's hands were near	Q3
	-
But why he said so strange a thing	O
No Warder dared to ask	S3
For he to whom a watcher's doom	A
Is given as his task	S3
Must set a lock upon his lips	U
And make his face a mask	S3
	-
Or else he might be moved and try	E
To comfort or console	U2
And what should Human Pity do	B
Pent up in Murderers' Hole	U2
What word of grace in such a place	U
Could help a brother's soul	U2
	-
With slouch and swing around the ring	O
We trod the Fools' Parade	T3
We did not care we knew we were	D
The Devil's Own Brigade	T3
And shaven head and feet of lead	G
Make a merry masquerade	T3
	-
We tore the tarry rope to shreds	U
With blunt and bleeding nails	U
We rubbed the doors and scrubbed the floors	U
And cleaned the shining rails	U
And rank by rank we soaped the plank	U3
And clattered with the pails	U
	-
We sewed the sacks we broke the stones	U
We turned the dusty drill	V3
We banged the tins and bawled the hymns	U
And sweated on the mill	V3
But in the heart of every man	A3
Terror was lying still	V3
	-
So still it lay that every day	K
Crawled like a weed clogged wave	W3
And we forgot the bitter lot	X3
That waits for fool and knave	W3
Till once as we tramped in from work	Y3
We passed an open grave	W3
	-
With yawning mouth the yellow hole	U2
Gaped for a living thing	O
The very mud cried out for blood	Z3
To the thirsty asphalte ring	O
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair	V2
Some prisoner had to swing	O
	-
Right in we went with soul intent	M
On Death and Dread and Doom	A
The hangman with his little bag	A4
Went shuffling through the gloom	A
And each man trembled as he crept	B4
Into his numbered tomb	A
	-
That night the empty corridors	U
Were full of forms of Fear	Q3
And up and down the iron town	A3
Stole feet we could not hear	T2
And through the bars that hide the stars	U
White faces seemed to peer	Q3
	-
He lay as one who lies and dreams	U
In a pleasant meadow land	D3
The watchers watched him as he slept	B4
And could not understand	D3
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep	I2
With a hangman close at hand	D3
	-
But there is no sleep when men must weep	I2
Who never yet have wept	B4
So we the fool the fraud the knave	W3
That endless vigil kept	B4
And through each brain on hands of pain	A3
Another's terror crept	B4
	-
Alas it is a fearful thing	O
To feel another's guilt	C4
For right within the sword of Sin	A3
Pierced to its poisoned hilt	C4
And as molten lead were the tears we shed	G
For the blood we had not spilt	C4
	-
The Warders with their shoes of felt	D4
Crept by each padlocked door	H2
And peeped and saw with eyes of awe	E4
Grey figures on the floor	H2
And wondered why men knelt to pray	K
Who never prayed before	H2
	-
All through the night we knelt and prayed	T3
Mad mourners of a corse	U
The troubled plumes of midnight were	D
The plumes upon a hearse	U
And bitter wine upon a sponge	F4
Was the savour of Remorse	U
	-
The grey cock crew the red cock crew	B
But never came the day	K
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched	G4
In the corners where we lay	K
And each evil sprite that walks by night	L2
Before us seemed to play	K
	-
They glided past they glided fast	H4
Like travellers through a mist	I4
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon	A3
Of delicate turn and twist	I4
And with formal pace and loathsome grace	U
The phantoms kept their tryst	I4
	-
With mop and mow we saw them go	Q
Slim shadows hand in hand	D3
About about in ghostly rout	J4
They trod a saraband	J4
And the damned grotesques made arabesques	U
Like the wind upon the sand	J4
	-
With the pirouettes of marionettes	U
They tripped on pointed tread	J4
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear	T2
As their grisly masque they led	J4
And loud they sang and long they sang	K4
For they sang to wake the dead	J4
	-
'Oho ' they cried 'The world is wide	J4
But fettered limbs go lame	A
And once or twice to throw the dice	U
Is a gentlemanly game	A
But he does not win who plays with Sin	A3
In the secret House of Shame '	-
	-
No things of air these antics were	D
That frolicked with such glee	K2
To men whose lives were held in gyves	U
And whose feet might not go free	K2
Ah wounds of Christ they were living things	U
Most terrible to see	K2
	-
Around around they waltzed and wound	J4
Some wheeled in smirking pairs	U
With the mincing step of a demirep	I2
Some sidled up the stairs	U
And with subtle sneer and fawning leer	K2
Each helped us at our prayers	U
	-
The morning wind began to moan	A3
But still the night went on	A3
Through its giant loom the web of gloom	A
Crept till each thread was spun	A3
And as we prayed we grew afraid	J4
Of the Justice of the Sun	A3
	-
The moaning wind went wandering round	J4
The weeping prison wall	L4
Till like a wheel of turning steel	S
We felt the minutes crawl	L4
O moaning wind what had we done	A3
To have such a seneschal	L4
	-
At last I saw the shadowed bars	U
Like a lattice wrought in lead	J4
Move right across the whitewashed wall	L4
That faced my three plank bed	J4
And I knew that somewhere in the world	J4
God's dreadful dawn was red	J4
	-
At six o'clock we cleaned our cells	U
At seven all was still	L4
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing	O
The prison seemed to fill	L4
For the Lord of Death with icy breath	M4
Had entered in to kill	L4
	-
He did not pass in purple pomp	I2
Nor ride a moon white steed	J4
Three yards of cord and a sliding board	J4
Are all the gallows' need	J4
So with rope of shame the Herald came	A
To do the secret deed	J4
	-
We were as men who through a fen	A3
Of filthy darkness grope	I2
We did not dare to breathe a prayer	K2
Or to give our anguish scope	I2
Something was dead in each of us	U
And what was dead was Hope	I2
	-
For Man's grim Justice goes its way	K
And will not swerve aside	J4
It slays the weak it slays the strong	D2
It has a deadly stride	J4
With iron heel it slays the strong	D2
The monstrous parricide	J4
	-
We waited for the stroke of eight	J4
Each tongue was thick with thirst	J4
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate	J4
That makes a man accursed	J4
And Fate will use a running noose	U
For the best man and the worst	J4
	-
We had no other thing to do	J4
Save to wait for the sign to come	A
So like things of stone in a valley lone	A3
Quiet we sat and dumb	A
But each man's heart beat thick and quick	N4
Like a madman on a drum	A
	-
With sudden shock the prison clock	O4
Smote on the shivering air	K2
And from all the gaol rose up a wail	L4
Of impotent despair	K2
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear	K2
From some leper in his lair	K2
	-
And as one sees most fearful things	U
In the crystal of a dream	A
We saw the greasy hempen rope	I2
Hooked to the blackened beam	A
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare	K2
Strangled into a scream	A
	-
And all the woe that moved him so	U
That he gave that bitter cry	K2
And the wild regrets and the bloody sweats	U
None knew so well as I	K2
For he who lives more lives than one	A3
More deaths than one must die	K2
	-
IV	W3
	-
There is no chapel on the day	J4
On which they hang a man	A3
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick	N4
Or his face is far too wan	A3
Or there is that written in his eyes	U
Which none should look upon	A3
	-
So they kept us close till nigh on noon	A3
And then they rang the bell	L4
And the Warders with their jingling keys	U
Opened each listening cell	L4
And down the iron stair we tramped	J4
Each from his separate Hell	L4
	-
Out into God's sweet air we went	J4
But not in wonted way	J4
For this man's face was white with fear	K2
And that man's face was grey	J4
And I never saw sad men who looked	J4
So wistfully at the day	J4
	-
I never saw sad men who looked	J4
With such a wistful eye	K2
Upon that little tent of blue	J4
We prisoners called the sky	K2
And at every careless cloud that passed	J4
In happy freedom by	K2
	-
But there were those amongst us all	L4
Who walked with downcast head	J4
And knew that had each got his due	J4
They should have died instead	J4
He had but killed a thing that lived	J4
Whilst they had killed the dead	J4
	-
For he who sins a second time	A
Wakes a dead soul to pain	A3
And draws it from its spotted shroud	J4
And makes it bleed again	A3
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood	J4
And makes it bleed in vain	A3
	-
Like ape or clown in monstrous garb	P4
With crooked arrows starred	J4
Silently we went round and round	J4
The slippery asphalte yard	J4
Silently we went round and round	J4
And no man spoke a word	J4
	-
Silently we went round and round	J4
And through each hollow mind	J4
The Memory of dreadful things	U
Rushed like a dreadful wind	J4
And Horror stalked before each man	A3
And Terror crept behind	J4
	-
The Warders strutted up and down	A3
And kept their herd of brutes	U
Their uniforms were spick and span	A3
And they wore their Sunday suits	U
But we knew the work they had been at	J4
By the quicklime on their boots	U
	-
For where a grave had opened wide	J4
There was no grave at all	L4
Only a stretch of mud and sand	J4
By the hideous prison wall	L4
And a little heap of burning lime	A
That the man should have his pall	L4
	-
For he has a pall this wretched man	A3
Such as few men can claim	A
Deep down below a prison yard	J4
Naked for greater shame	A
He lies with fetters on each foot	J4
Wrapt in a sheet of flame	A
	-
And all the while the burning lime	A
Eats flesh and bone away	J4
It eats the brittle bone by night	J4
And the soft flesh by day	J4
It eats the flesh and bone by turns	U
But it eats the heart alway	J4
	-
For three long years they will not sow	U
Or root or seedling there	K2
For three long years the unblessed spot	J4
Will sterile be and bare	K2
And look upon the wondering sky	K2
With unreproachful stare	K2
	-
They think a murderer's heart would taint	J4
Each simple seed they sow	U
It is not true God's kindly earth	Q4
Is kindlier than men know	U
And the red rose would but blow more red	J4
The white rose whiter blow	U
	-
Out of his mouth a red red rose	U
Out of his heart a white	J4
For who can say by what strange way	J4
Christ brings His will to light	J4
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore	K2
Bloomed in the great Pope's sight	J4
	-
But neither milk white rose nor red	J4
May bloom in prison air	K2
The shard the pebble and the flint	J4
Are what they give us there	K2
For flowers have been known to heal	L4
A common man's despair	K2
	-
So never will wine red rose or white	J4
Petal by petal fall	L4
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies	U
By the hideous prison wall	L4
To tell the men who tramp the yard	J4
That God's Son died for all	L4
	-
Yet though the hideous prison wall	L4
Still hems him round and round	J4
And a spirit may not walk by night	J4
That is with fetters bound	J4
And a spirit may but weep that lies	U
In such unholy ground	J4
	-
He is at peace this wretched man	A3
At peace or will be soon	A3
There is no thing to make him mad	J4
Nor does Terror walk at noon	A3
For the lampless Earth in which he lies	U
Has neither Sun nor Moon	A3
	-
They hanged him as a beast is hanged	J4
They did not even toll	L4
A requiem that might have brought	J4
Rest to his startled soul	L4
But hurriedly they took him out	J4
And hid him in a hole	L4
	-
They stripped him of his canvas clothes	U
And gave him to the flies	U
They mocked the swollen purple throat	J4
And the stark and staring eyes	U
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud	J4
In which their convict lies	U
	-
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray	J4
By his dishonoured grave	W3
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross	U
That Christ for sinners gave	W3
Because the man was one of those	U
Whom Christ came down to save	W3
	-
Yet all is well he has but passed	J4
To Life's appointed bourne	A3
And alien tears will fill for him	A
Pity's long broken urn	A3
For his mourners will be outcast men	A3
And outcasts always mourn	A3
	-
V	W3
	-
I know not whether Laws be right	J4
Or whether Laws be wrong	D2
All that we know who lie in gaol	L4
Is that the wall is strong	D2
And that each day is like a year	K2
A year whose days are long	D2
	-
But this I know that every Law	L4
That men have made for Man	A3
Since first Man took his brother's life	W3
And the sad world began	A3
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff	W3
With a most evil fan	A3
	-
This too I know and wise it were	K2
If each could know the same	A
That every prison that men build	J4
Is built with bricks of shame	A
And bound with bars lest Christ should see	W3
How men their brothers maim	A
	-
With bars they blur the gracious moon	A3
And blind the goodly sun	A3
And they do well to hide their Hell	L4
For in it things are done	A3
That Son of God nor son of Man	A3
Ever should look upon	A3
	-
The vilest deeds like poison weeds	U
Bloom well in prison air	K2
It is only what is good in Man	A3
That wastes and withers there	K2
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate	J4
And the Warder is Despair	K2
	-
For they starve the little frightened child	J4
Till it weeps both night and day	J4
And they scourge the weak and flog the fool	L4
And gibe the old and grey	J4
And some grow mad and all grow bad	J4
And none a word may say	J4
	-
Each narrow cell in which we dwell	L4
Is a foul and dark latrine	A3
And the fetid breath of living Death	M4
Chokes up each grated screen	A3
And all but Lust is turned to dust	J4
In Humanity's machine	A3
	-
The brackish water that we drink	R4
Creeps with a loathsome slime	A
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales	U
Is full of chalk and lime	A
And Sleep will not lie down but walks	U
Wild eyed and cries to Time	A
	-
But though lean Hunger and green Thirst	J4
Like asp with adder fight	J4
We have little care of prison fare	K2
For what chills and kills outright	J4
Is that every stone one lifts by day	J4
Becomes one's heart by night	J4
	-
With midnight always in one's heart	J4
And twilight in one's cell	L4
We turn the crank or tear the rope	I2
Each in his separate Hell	L4
And the silence is more awful far	K2
Than the sound of a brazen bell	L4
	-
And never a human voice comes near	K2
To speak a gentle word	J4
And the eye that watches through the door	K2
Is pitiless and hard	J4
And by all forgot we rot and rot	J4
With soul and body marred	J4
	-
And thus we rust Life's iron chain	A3
Degraded and alone	A3
And some men curse and some men weep	I2
And some men make no moan	A3
But God's eternal Laws are kind	J4
And break the heart of stone	A3
	-
And every human heart that breaks	U
In prison cell or yard	J4
Is as that broken box that gave	W3
Its treasure to the Lord	J4
And filled the unclean leper's house	U
With the scent of costliest nard	J4
	-
Ah happy they whose hearts can break	E3
And peace of pardon win	A3
How else may man make straight his plan	A3
And cleanse his soul from Sin	A3
How else but through a broken heart	J4
May Lord Christ enter in	A3
	-
And he of the swollen purple throat	J4
And the stark and staring eyes	U
Waits for the holy hands that took	W
The Thief to Paradise	U
And a broken and a contrite heart	J4
The Lord will not despise	U
	-
The man in red who reads the Law	L4
Gave him three weeks of life	W3
Three little weeks in which to heal	L4
His soul of his soul's strife	W3
And cleanse from every blot of blood	J4
The hand that held the knife	W3
	-
And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand	J4
The hand that held the steel	L4
For only blood can wipe out blood	J4
And only tears can heal	L4
And the crimson stain that was of Cain	A3
Became Christ's snow white seal	L4
	-
VI	K2
	-
In Reading gaol by Reading town	A3
There is a pit of shame	A
And in it lies a wretched man	A3
Eaten by teeth of flame	A
In a burning winding sheet he lies	U
And his grave has got no name	A
	-
And there till Christ call forth the dead	J4
In silence let him lie	K2
No need to waste the foolish tear	K2
Or heave the windy sigh	K2
The man had killed the thing he loved	J4
And so he had to die	K2
	-
And all men kill the thing they love	W3
By all let this be heard	J4
Some do it with a bitter look	W
Some with a flattering word	J4
The coward does it with a kiss	U
The brave man with a sword	J4

Oscar Wilde

Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation

<< Tædium Vitæ Poem The Burden Of Itys Poem>>

Write your comment about The Ballad Of Reading Gaol poem by Oscar Wilde

Best Poems of Oscar Wilde

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 201 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Wonderful Women
by Umaru Kanneh Boima
Freedom To Scratch In Peace
by Olute Aete
Happy New Year
by Felix Menda
Human Beings
by Dana Graslie
Lust
by Wisdom Greatness
An Isolated Tree's Song
by Sayeed Abubakar
A Strange Boy
by Sayeed Abubakar
O Soil
by Sayeed Abubakar
No War, No War-monger
by Sayeed Abubakar
Night's Town
by Sayeed Abubakar

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2414 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)