Ballad of Reading Gaol | Page 8

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.
For 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.
The oak and elm have pleasant leaves?That in the spring-time shoot:?But grim to see is the gallows-tree,?With its alder-bitten root,?And, green or dry, a man must die?Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is the 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?For weal or woe 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 we were:?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.
III
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 day was 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 Fools' Parade!?We did not care: we knew we were?The Devils' 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 horrid 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?The fellow 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 I trembled as I groped my way?Into my 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 watchers 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 knaveThat?endless vigil kept,?And through each brain on hands of pain?Another's