592. from The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
b'Oscar Wilde read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------\\n\\nfrom The Ballad of Reading Gaol \\nby Oscar Wilde (1854 \\u2013 1900)\\n\\n\\nHe did not wear his scarlet coat,\\nFor blood and wine are red,\\nAnd blood and wine were on his hands\\nWhen they found him with the dead,\\nThe poor dead woman whom he loved,\\nAnd murdered in her bed.\\n\\nHe walked amongst the Trial Men\\nIn a suit of shabby grey;\\nA cricket cap was on his head,\\nAnd his step seemed light and gay;\\nBut I never saw a man who looked\\nSo wistfully at the day.\\n\\nI never saw a man who looked\\nWith such a wistful eye\\nUpon that little tent of blue\\nWhich prisoners call the sky,\\nAnd at every drifting cloud that went\\nWith sails of silver by.\\n\\nI walked, with other souls in pain,\\nWithin another ring,\\nAnd was wondering if the man had done\\nA great or little thing,\\nWhen a voice behind me whispered low,\\n"That fellow\\u2019s got to swing."\\n\\nDear Christ! the very prison walls\\nSuddenly seemed to reel,\\nAnd the sky above my head became\\nLike a casque of scorching steel;\\nAnd, though I was a soul in pain,\\nMy pain I could not feel.\\n\\nI only knew what hunted thought\\nQuickened his step, and why\\nHe looked upon the garish day\\nWith such a wistful eye;\\nThe man had killed the thing he loved\\nAnd so he had to die.\\n\\nYet each man kills the thing he loves\\nBy each let this be heard,\\nSome do it with a bitter look,\\nSome with a flattering word,\\nThe coward does it with a kiss,\\nThe brave man with a sword!\\n\\nSome kill their love when they are young,\\nAnd some when they are old;\\nSome strangle with the hands of Lust,\\nSome with the hands of Gold:\\nThe kindest use a knife, because\\nThe dead so soon grow cold.\\n\\nSome love too little, some too long,\\nSome sell, and others buy;\\nSome do the deed with many tears,\\nAnd some without a sigh:\\nFor each man kills the thing he loves,\\nYet each man does not die.\\n\\nHe does not die a death of shame\\nOn a day of dark disgrace,\\nNor have a noose about his neck,\\nNor a cloth upon his face,\\nNor drop feet foremost through the floor\\nInto an empty place.\\n\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.'