The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde Oscar

Before us seemed to play.

                     They glided past, they glided fast,

                       Like travelers through a mist:

                     They mocked the moon in a rigadoon

                       Of delicate turn and twist,

                     And with formal pace and loathsome grace

                       The phantoms kept their tryst.

                     With mop and mow, we saw them go,

                       Slim shadows hand in hand:

                     About, about, in ghostly rout

                       They trod a saraband:

                     And the damned grotesques made arabesques,

                       Like the wind upon the sand!

                     With the pirouettes of marionettes,

                       They tripped on pointed tread:

                     But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,

                       As their grisly masque they led,

                     And loud they sang, and loud they sang,

                       For they sang to wake the dead.

                     "Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,

                       But fettered limbs go lame!

                     And once, or twice, to throw the dice

                       Is a gentlemanly game,

                     But he does not win who plays with Sin

                       In the secret House of Shame."

      III

         No things of air these antics were

                       That frolicked with such glee:

                     To men whose lives were held in gyves,

                       And whose feet might not go free,

                     Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,

                       Most terrible to see.

                     Around, around, they waltzed and wound;

                       Some wheeled in smirking pairs:

                     With the mincing step of demirep

                       Some sidled up the stairs:

                     And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,

                       Each helped us at our prayers.

                     The morning wind began to moan,

                       But still the night went on:

                     Through its giant loom the web of gloom

                       Crept till each thread was spun:

                     And, as we prayed, we grew afraid

                       Of the Justice of the Sun.

                     The moaning wind went wandering round

                       The weeping prison-wall:

                     Till like a wheel of turning-steel

                       We felt the minutes crawl: