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 A Hanging in Prison

(From "The Ballad of Reading Gaol")

(English poet and dramatist, 1856-1900, leader of the so-called "esthetes." The poem from which these extracts are taken was the fruit of his long imprisonment, and is one of the most moving and terrible narratives in English poetry)

With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools' Parade; We did not care; we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade: And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day Crawled like a weed-clogged wave; And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work, We passed an open grave.