Ballad of Reading Gaol | Page 4

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.
He lay as one who lies and dreams?In a pleasant meadow-land,?The watcher watched him as he slept,?And could not understand?How one could sleep so sweet a sleep?With a hangman close at hand?
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.?___?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.
The Warders with their shoes of felt?Crept by each padlocked door,?And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,?Grey figures on the floor,?And wondered why men knelt to pray?Who never prayed before.
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.?___?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.
They glided past, they glided fast,?Like travelers through a mist:?They mocked the moon in a rigadoon?Of delicate turn and twist,?And with formal pace and loathsome grace?The phantoms kept their tryst.
With mop and mow, we saw them go,?Slim shadows hand in hand:?About, about, in ghostly rout?They trod a saraband:?And the damned grotesques made arabesques,?Like the wind upon the sand!
With the pirouettes of marionettes,?They tripped on pointed tread:?But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,?As their grisly masque they led,?And loud they sang, and loud they sang,?For they sang to wake the dead.
"Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,?But fettered limbs go lame!?And once,