Page:The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1904).djvu/24



IX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, In the suit of shabby gray: His 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 wandering cloud that trailed Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do  Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair: He only looked upon the sun, And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep, Nor did he peek or pine, 8