Oscar Wilde

Αποσπάσματα απο το ποίημα
"The ballad of Reading Gaol"

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 anohter ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me wispered low,
"Than 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 scorcing 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 suh a wistful eye;
The man had kiled the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

***

Yet each man kills the thing he lovew,
By each let this be heard,
Aome do it with a bitter look,
Some woth a flattering word,
The coward doew it woth 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,
Noe drop feet foremost through the fllor
Into an empty space.

[...]


Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
Ans cleanse his soul from sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?

***

And he of the swollen purple throat,
And the stark and staring eyew,
Waits for the holy hands that took
The thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a sontrite heart
The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the law
Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
His soul of hit soul's strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe oyt blood,
And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain than was of Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal.