Page:The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1904).djvu/42

 For who can say by what strange way, Christ brings His will to light, Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red May bloom in prison air; The shard, the pebble, and the flint, Are what they give us there: For flowers have been known to heal A common man's despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white, Petal by petal, fall On that stretch of mud and sand that lies By the hideous prison-wall, To tell the men who tramp the yard That God's Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall Still hems him round and round, And a spirit may not walk by night That is with fetters bound, And a spirit may but weep that lies In such unholy ground.

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