Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

PREFACE

It is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde’s early verses may be of interest to a large public at present familiar only with the always popular Ballad of Reading Gaol, also included in this volume. The poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex years old, and though never, until recently, well received by the critics, have survived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able to make for themselves the obvious and striking contrasts between these first and last phases of Oscar Wilde’s literary activity. The intervening period was devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and criticism.

ROBERT ROSS

Reform Club,

April 5, 1911.

NOTE

At the end of the complete text will be found a shorter version based on the original draft of the poem. This is included for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary executor, by falling back on a text which represents the author’s first scheme for a poem – never intended of course for recitation.

ROBERT ROSSIN MEMORIAMC. T. WSometimes trooper ofThe Royal Horse GuardsObiit H.M. PrisonReading, BerkshireJuly 7th, 1896

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

IHe did not wear his scarlet coat,   For blood and wine are red,And blood and wine were on his hands   When they found him with the dead,The poor dead woman whom he loved,   And murdered in her bed.He walked amongst the Trial Men   In a suit of shabby grey;A cricket cap was on his head,   And his step seemed light and gay;But I never saw a man who looked   So wistfully at the day.I never saw a man who looked   With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue   Which prisoners call the sky,And at every drifting cloud that went   With sails of silver by.I walked, with other souls in pain,   Within another ring,And was wondering if the man had done   A great or little thing,When a voice behind me whispered low,   ‘That fellow’s got to swing.’Dear Christ! the very prison walls   Suddenly seemed to reel,And the sky above my head became   Like a casque of scorching steel;And, though I was a soul in pain,   My pain I could not feel.I only knew what hunted thought   Quickened his step, and whyHe looked upon the garish day   With such a wistful eye;The man had killed the thing he loved,   And so he had to die.Yet each man kills the thing he loves,   By each 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!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.He does not die a death of shame   On a day of dark disgrace,Nor have a noose about his neck,   Nor a cloth upon his face,Nor drop feet foremost through the floor   Into an empty space.He does not sit with silent men   Who watch him night and day;Who watch him when he tries to weep,   And when he tries to pray;Who watch him lest himself should rob   The prison of its prey.He does not wake at dawn to see   Dread figures throng his room,The shivering Chaplain robed in white,   The Sheriff stern with gloom,And the Governor all in shiny black,   With the yellow face of Doom.He does not rise in piteous haste   To put on convict-clothes,While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes   Each new and nerve-twitched pose,Fingering a watch whose little ticks   Are like horrible hammer-blows.He does not know that sickening thirst   That sands one’s throat, beforeThe hangman with his gardener’s gloves   Slips through the padded door,And binds one with three leathern thongs,   That the throat may thirst no more.He does not bend his head to hear   The Burial Office read,Nor, while the terror of his soul   Tells him he is not dead,Cross his own coffin, as he moves   Into the hideous shed.He does not stare upon the air   Through a little roof of glass:He does not pray with lips of clay   For his agony to pass;Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek   The kiss of Caiaphas.IISix weeks our guardsman walked the yard,   In the suit of shabby grey:His cricket cap was on his head,   And his step seemed light and gay,But I never saw a man who looked   So wistfully at the day.I never saw a man who looked   With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue   Which prisoners call the sky,And at every wandering cloud that trailed   Its ravelled fleeces by.He did not wring his hands, as do   Those witless men who dareTo 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 springtime 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 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.IIIIn 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 Fools’ 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 watchers watched him as he slept,   And could not understandHow 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 corse!The troubled plumes of midnight were   The plumes upon a hearse:And bitter wine upon a sponge   Was the savour of Remorse.The grey cock crew, the red cock crew,   But never came the day:And crooked shapes 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 travellers 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 long they sang,   For they sang to wake the dead.‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide,   But fettered limbs go lame!And once, or twice, to throw the dice   Is a gentlemanly game,But he does not win who plays with Sin   In the secret House of Shame.’No things of air these antics were,   That frolicked with such glee:To men whose lives were held in gyves,   And whose feet might not go free,Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,   Most terrible to see.Around, around, they waltzed and wound;   Some wheeled in smirking pairs;With the mincing step of a demirep   Some sidled up the stairs:And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,   Each helped us at our prayers.The morning wind began to moan,   But still the night went on:Through its giant loom the web of gloom   Crept till each thread was spun:And, as we prayed, we grew afraid   Of the Justice of the Sun.The moaning wind went wandering round   The weeping prison-wall:Till like a wheel of turning steel   We felt the minutes crawl:O moaning wind! what had we done   To have such a seneschal?At last I saw the shadowed bars,   Like a lattice wrought in lead,Move right across the whitewashed wall   That faced my three-plank bed,And I knew that somewhere in the world   God’s dreadful dawn was red.At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,   At seven all was still,But the sough and swing of a mighty wing   The prison seemed to fill,For the Lord of Death with icy breath   Had entered in to kill.He did not pass in purple pomp,   Nor ride a moon-white steed.Three yards of cord and a sliding board   Are all the gallows’ need:So with rope of shame the Herald came   To do the secret deed.We were as men who through a fen   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.For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,   And will not swerve aside:It slays the weak, it slays the strong,   It has a deadly stride:With iron heel it slays the strong,   The monstrous parricide!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!With sudden shock the prison-clock   Smote on the shivering air,And from all the gaol rose up a wail   Of impotent despair,Like the sound that frightened marshes hear   From some leper in his lair.And as one sees most fearful things   In the crystal of a dream,We saw the greasy hempen rope   Hooked to the blackened beam,And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare   Strangled into a scream.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.IVThere is no chapel on the day   On which they hang a man:The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,   Or his face is far too wan,Or there is that written in his eyes   Which none should look upon.So they kept us close till nigh on noon,   And then they rang the bell,And the Warders with their jingling keys   Opened each listening cell,And down the iron stair we tramped,   Each from his separate Hell.Out into God’s sweet air we went,   But not in wonted way,For this man’s face was white with fear,   And that man’s face was grey,And I never saw sad men who looked   So wistfully at the day.I never saw sad men who looked   With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue   We prisoners called the sky,And at every careless cloud that passed   In happy freedom by.But there were those amongst us all   Who walked with downcast head,And knew that, had each got his due,   They should have died instead:He had but killed a thing that lived,   Whilst they had killed the dead.For he who sins a second time   Wakes a dead soul to pain,And draws it from its spotted shroud,   And makes it bleed again,And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,   And makes it bleed in vain!Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb   With crooked arrows starred,Silently we went round and round   The slippery asphalte yard;Silently we went round and round,   And no man spoke a word.Silently we went round and round,   And through each hollow mindThe Memory of dreadful things   Rushed like a dreadful wind,And Horror stalked before each man,   And Terror crept behind.The Warders strutted up and down,   And kept their herd of brutes,Their uniforms were spick and span,   And they wore their Sunday suits,But we knew the work they had been at,   By the quicklime on their boots.For where a grave had opened wide,   There was no grave at all:

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