How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in? – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air! – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm We had crossed each other’s way: But we made no sign, we said no word, We had no word to say. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
The vilest deeds like poison-weeds Bloom well in prison-air; It is only what is good in Man That wanders and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate And the warden is Despair. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
And thus we rust Life’s iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God’s eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone. – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
