Оскар Уайльд - Баллада Редингской тюрьмы

Оскар Уайльд

Баллада Редингской тюрьмы

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

a poem by Oscar Wilde

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,For blood and wine are red,And blood and wine were on his handsWhen they found him with the dead,The poor dead woman whom he loved,And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial MenIn 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 lookedSo wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who lookedWith such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blueWhich prisoners call the sky,And at every drifting cloud that wentWith sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,Within another ring,And was wondering if the man had doneA great or little thing,When a voice behind me whispered low,"That fellow's got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison wallsSuddenly seemed to reel,And the sky above my head becameLike a casque of scorching steel;And, though I was a soul in pain,My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thoughtQuickened his step, and whyHe looked upon the garish dayWith such a wistful eye;The man had killed the thing he lovedAnd so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy 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, becauseThe 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 shameOn a day of dark disgrace,Nor have a noose about his neck,Nor a cloth upon his face,Nor drop feet foremost through the floorInto an empty place

He does not sit with silent menWho 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 robThe prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to seeDread 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 hasteTo put on convict-clothes,While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notesEach new and nerve-twitched pose,Fingering a watch whose little ticksAre like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirstThat sands one's throat, beforeThe hangman with his gardener's glovesSlips 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 hearThe Burial Office read,Nor, while the terror of his soulTells him he is not dead,Cross his own coffin, as he movesInto the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the airThrough a little roof of glass;He does not pray with lips of clayFor his agony to pass;Nor feel upon his shuddering cheekThe kiss of Caiaphas.

II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,In a 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 lookedSo wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who lookedWith such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blueWhich prisoners call the sky,And at every wandering cloud that trailedIts ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as doThose witless men who dareTo try to rear the changeling HopeIn 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 heldSome healthful anodyne;With open mouth he drank the sunAs though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,Who tramped the other ring,Forgot if we ourselves had doneA great or little thing,And watched with gaze of dull amazeThe man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him passWith a step so light and gay,And strange it was to see him lookSo wistfully at the day,And strange it was to think that heHad such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leavesThat 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 dieBefore it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of graceFor which all worldlings try:But who would stand in hempen bandUpon a scaffold high,And through a murderer's collar takeHis last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violinsWhen Love and Life are fair:To dance to flutes, to dance to lutesIs delicate and rare:But it is not sweet with nimble feetTo dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmiseWe watched him day by day,And wondered if each one of usWould end the self-same way,For none can tell to what red HellHis sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no moreAmongst the Trial Men,And I knew that he was standing upIn the black dock's dreadful pen,And that never would I see his faceIn God's sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in stormWe 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 SinHad 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 airBeneath the leaden sky,And by each side a Warder walked,For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watchedHis anguish night and day;Who watched him when he rose to weep,And when he crouched to pray;Who watched him lest himself should robTheir scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong uponThe Regulations Act:The Doctor said that Death was butA scientific fact:And twice a day the Chaplain calledAnd left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,And drank his quart of beer:His soul was resolute, and heldNo hiding-place for fear;He often said that he was gladThe hangman's hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thingNo Warder dared to ask:For he to whom a watcher's doomIs given as his task,Must set a lock upon his lips,And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and tryTo comfort or console:And what should Human Pity doPent up in Murderers' Hole?What word of grace in such a placeCould help a brother's soul?

With slouch and swing around the ringWe trod the Fool's Parade!We did not care: we knew we wereThe Devil's Own Brigade:And shaven head and feet of leadMake a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shredsWith 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 manTerror was lying still.

So still it lay that every dayCrawled like a weed-clogged wave:And we forgot the bitter lotThat waits for fool and knave,Till once, as we tramped in from work,We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow holeGaped for a living thing;The very mud cried out for bloodTo the thirsty asphalte ring:And we knew that ere one dawn grew fairSome prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intentOn Death and Dread and Doom:The hangman, with his little bag,Went shuffling through the gloomAnd each man trembled as he creptInto his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridorsWere full of forms of Fear,And up and down the iron townStole feet we could not hear,And through the bars that hide the starsWhite faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreamsIn a pleasant meadow-land,The watcher watched him as he slept,And could not understandHow one could sleep so sweet a sleepWith a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weepWho never yet have wept:So we — the fool, the fraud, the knave—That endless vigil kept,And through each brain on hands of painAnother's terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thingTo feel another's guilt!For, right within, the sword of SinPierced to its poisoned hilt,And as molten lead were the tears we shedFor the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of feltCrept by each padlocked door,And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,Grey figures on the floor,And wondered why men knelt to prayWho never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,Mad mourners of a corpse!The troubled plumes of midnight wereThe plumes upon a hearse:And bitter wine upon a spongeWas the savour 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 nightBefore us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,Like travellers through a mist:They mocked the moon in a rigadoonOf delicate turn and twist,And with formal pace and loathsome graceThe phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,Slim shadows hand in hand:About, about, in ghostly routThey 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, or twice, to throw the diceIs a gentlemanly game,But he does not win who plays with SinIn the secret House of Shame."

No things of air these antics wereThat 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 demirepSome 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 gloomCrept till each thread was spun:And, as we prayed, we grew afraidOf the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering roundThe weeping prison-wall:Till like a wheel of turning-steelWe felt the minutes crawl:O moaning wind! what had we doneTo have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed barsLike a lattice wrought in lead,Move right across the whitewashed wallThat faced my three-plank bed,And I knew that somewhere in the worldGod'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 wingThe prison seemed to fill,For the Lord of Death with icy breathHad entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,Nor ride a moon-white steed.Three yards of cord and a sliding boardAre all the gallows' need:So with rope of shame the Herald cameTo do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fenOf filthy darkness grope:We did not dare to breathe a prayer,Or 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 FateThat makes a man accursed,And Fate will use a running nooseFor 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 quickLike a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clockSmote on the shivering air,And from all the gaol rose up a wailOf impotent despair,Like the sound that frightened marshes hearFrom a leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful thingsIn the crystal of a dream,We saw the greasy hempen ropeHooked to the blackened beam,And heard the prayer the hangman's snareStrangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him soThat he gave that bitter cry,And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,None knew so well as I:For he who live more lives than oneMore deaths than one must die.

IV