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The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde OscarЧитать онлайн книгу.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Wilde Oscar


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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,

                      


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