Page:The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1904).djvu/25

 But he drank the air as though it held Some healthful anodyne; With open mouth he drank the sun As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain, Who tramped the other ring, Forgot if we ourselves had done A great or little thing, And watched with gaze of dull amaze The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass With a step so light and gay, And strange it was to see him look So wistfully at the day, And strange it was to think that he  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the spring-time shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit!

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