The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison.
“How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?”
Pt. V, st. 14
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Pt. I, st. 3
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
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.
Pt. V, st. 29
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
“When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellow's got to swing."”
Pt. I, st. 4
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Pt. III, st. 19
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
“Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.”
Pt. III, st. 29
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
“And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity's machine.”
Pt. V, st. 7
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Pt. III, st. 35
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Pt. II, st. 9
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”
Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems
Pt. I, st. 7.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
Pt. I, st. 7
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
