The Ballad of Reading Gaol – Oscar Wilde

In 1895, Oscar Wilde was incarcerated in Reading, Berkshire for two years hard labor after being convicted of homosexual relationships, described as “gross indecency” with other men.

The witty, flamboyant playwright and author was released a broken, bankrupt and humiliated man. In 1897, he wrote the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol (gaol is the British term for “jail”), a elegy written out of Wilde’s jail-time experience of the execution of Charles Wooldridge, a fellow prisoner and trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, a regiment of the Britsh Army.  Wooldridge killed his wife in a fit of jealousy.  The finished poem was published under the name c.3.3., which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3.

Oscar Wilde’s epitaph is a quote from The Ballad of Reading Gaol:

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

Below are other famous quotes from the poem:

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.

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.

The vilest deeds like poison-weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate
And the Warder is Despair

To read The Ballad of Reading Gaol in its entirety, click here.