“The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there”

Pt. V, st. 30
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Context: The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.

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Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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