Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ebook75 pages39 minutes

    Ballad of Reading Gaol

    By Oscar Wilde

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 and died on the 30th November 1900. He was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest.

    Read more from Oscar Wilde

    Related to Ballad of Reading Gaol

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky

      May 12, 2020

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky
      7 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mountain Time

      Jan 1, 2021

      In the air you don’t know who you are or where My own self feels it is in wind being born These are currents a man made one eighth of smokeless fire fears but chooses A path south from Anchorage to a Mountain House Ungovern the northern land to pass

      10 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2019

      Then the blue screech the lake bellowing my name over a crowd but I never felt found never knew that sharp peal of a bellTo be greeted hello by a warm group of friends who all look like me but for long years I have been litigating HellOnly to win any

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Epic Of Gilgamesh

      Jan 1, 2020

      My friends, who can reach heaven? The monster bellows like a river swollen with flood.Many are consumed in his fiery breath. My friends, who can reach heaven? Let us ask the mountain for a sign.Let us cut the spirits from the cedars. My friends, who

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    • Article

      In the Dolomites

      Sep 1, 2019

      1. The afternoon walk, it turns out, may not have been a walk at all.Nor can I locate in the Dolomites the placeWhere we met, though I remember It with a level of detailUsually I reserve for things of consequence.Snow layered in the crevices, white

      4 min read

    • Article

      Fleinvær, NORWAY.

      Feb 28, 2020

      Fleinvær, NORWAY.
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Jun 30, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 268, you were invited to write a poem with the title The Writing on the Wall. Anthony Young observed of the makers of those great spray-paint tags that we see from trains, ‘They paint their aims with aerosol,/Abiding to the protocol

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Time Machine

      Aug 4, 2021

      There’s a pattern built into this story – can you work it out from the numbers in bold at the start of each section? I’m sitting on the beach by Rhodes port, watching sailors load our luggage onto a ship bound for Rome. I don’t want to go, but my f

      7 min read

    • Article

      My Purpose Holds

      Aug 10, 2020

      My Purpose Holds
      1 min read

    • Article

      WILD EYES & RESTLESS WINDS

      Oct 4, 2017

      WILD EYES & RESTLESS WINDS
      4 min read

    • Article

      “A New Day Dawns”

      Jul 31, 2020

      “A New Day Dawns”
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Salmon

      Mar 19, 2024

      I’ve always loved salmon. Not to eat, as I don’t eat fish, but I’ve always loved salmon in general because salmon jump and no one knows why. They jump all over the place—out of rivers, up waterfalls. Some say they jump to clean their gills. Others sa

      19 min read

    • Article

      Until The Sea Closed Over Us And The Light Was Gone

      Jul 1, 2020

      —Dante, Canto XXVI But if the truth is dreamed of toward the morning—El Paso Although it was really last summer’s song,all this summer Despacito played on as slower then I turned myself to gazeupon Juarez. The summer everything hurts my eyes, a dozen

      6 min read

    • Article

      White Silence

      Dec 22, 2020

      White Silence
      5 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      May 1, 2022

      Seven Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      For Fjords’ Sake

      Aug 3, 2021

      For Fjords’ Sake
      6 min read

    • Article

      Saint Cuthbert’s Incorruptible Body

      Sep 8, 2020

      In the year of our Lord 687, in cause of an early, wet spring, the body of Saint Cuthbert was laid in the ground to rest. On the tomb were figured angels and seraphim of plain but wonderful design. And among these flitted cherubs, like apricots set i

      19 min read

    • Article

      Competition

      Aug 25, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 270, you were invited to write a poem called The Hall. Heather Oxley began, ‘Our halls are gateways to our outside selves.’ John Oldershaw’s narrator started in medias res: ‘“It’s the hall that sells the house!”/ Said Mr Valentine,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 2, 2019

      Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that, you get into the gulf-stream of winter, nearer the shores of spring. —Henry David Thoreau, Journal, February 2, 1854 [T]he pure luxury of a cloudless sky designed not to

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Aug 24, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 283 you were invited to write a poem called Things Fall Apart. Martin Brown wrote some close parody of Yeats, and when his shopping bag burst, ‘The best splat all the kitchen, while the walls / Are caught with passionfruit at veloci

      2 min read

    • Article

      Dogs of Urban Infrastructure

      Dec 1, 2018

      Look, she’ll say, everything goes as it should,and winter is about to begin. Those who know the secret passagescutting through the labyrinthwill be able to go back one dayand to start everything anew. Beggars feel the arrival of winter first:teenag

      2 min read

    • Article

      Equinox

      May 18, 2022

      In this strange world, where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun, supernatural forces are at work – and they’re causing trouble… St Leonars prison was an appropriately imposing building. It rose out of the surrounding shacks and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Hot As Helvellyn

      Sep 10, 2021

      Hot As Helvellyn
      7 min read

    Reviews for Ballad of Reading Gaol

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar Wilde

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Ballad of Reading Gaol

      Author: Oscar Wilde

      Release Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #301]

      Last Updated: February 7, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL ***

      Produced by Faith Knowles, David Widger, and an Anonymous Volunteer

      THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

      By Oscar Wilde

      In Memoriam

      C.T.W.

      Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards.

      Obiit H.M. Prison, Reading, Berkshire,

      July 7th, 1896

      Presented by Project Gutenberg on the 99th Anniversary.

      Version One

      Version Two

      Version One

                     I.

                     He 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 eye

                     Upon 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 why

                     He 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 place

                     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

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1