Kötéltànc

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde 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 fellows 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.