The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-06-18
BOOKS OF POETRY.
Oscar wilde's Superb BaIIad-Mrs. loves
and Ada Negris Verse.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol. By c.
8. 8. Oscar Wilde). Benz. r. Tucker,
New York.
Mr.. Tucker has brought out an excel
lent edition of this really great poem,
but there is no need of preserving the
pen name, since every one knows that
Oscar Wilde wrote it, and if they did
not, the publisher has tucked slip Of
PAPER inside the cover divulging the
authors identity. These grewsome
verses have tremendous power and
their ballad quality is superb. They
are inscribed Ito the memory of c. T..
w, sometime trooper of the Royal
Horse Guards, who died in the Reading
prison, July 7, 1859" for the murder of
a woman. The ballad gives a weird,
shocking picture of prison life, and the
horror of death during the weeks that
intervene between the sentence and the
execution. This is the way it opens;
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on MS hands
When they found him with the dead
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the trial men
In a suit of shabby gray;
a cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay,
But never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the sky.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent Of blue
Which prisoners call the SKY,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
A horrible pictures is given of the
day of execution:
There 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 Wardens with their langlng Keys
Opened each listening cell;
And down the iron stair he tramped,
Each from his separate hell.
The wardens strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes;
Their uniforms were spick and span
And they wore their Sunday suits;
BY the quicklime on their boots.
For where a grave had opened wide
There was no grave at all
Only a stretch of mud and sand
-a BY the hideous prison wall,
And a little heap of burning lime
That the man should have his pail.
For ne has a pail, this wretched man,
Such as few men can claim;
Deep down below prison yard
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with letters on each foot
Wrapt in a sheet of flame.
And all the while the burning lime
Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night
And the soft flesh by day;
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
But it eats the heart Away.
For three long years they will not sow
Or root a Seeding there;
For three long. years the unblessed spot
Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.
At the close only is there a CLEAN
OF light, and that is ambiguous;
All, happy they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win
How else may man make straight his place
And cleanse his soul from sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal;
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
Become Christ's snow-White seal.
And all men kill the thing they love,
BY all let this be heard
Some do ii with a bitter look,
Some with a fiattering word.
The coward does it with kiss,