Читать книгу The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Оскар Уайльд, Wilde Oscar, F. H. Cornish - Страница 2

               Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,

                 In a suit of shabby grey:

               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 raveled 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,

               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!

               The loftiest place is that seat of grace

                 For which all worldlings try:

               But who would stand in hempen band

                 Upon a scaffold high,

               And through a murderer's collar take

                 His last look at the sky?

               It is sweet to dance to violins

                 When Love and Life are fair:

               To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes

                 Is delicate and rare:

               But it is not sweet with nimble feet

                 To dance upon the air!

               So with curious eyes and sick surmise

                 We watched him day by day,

               And wondered if each one of us

                 Would end the self-same way,

               For none can tell to what red Hell

                 His sightless soul may stray.

               At last the dead man walked no more

                 Amongst the Trial Men,

               And I knew that he was standing up

                 In the black dock's dreadful pen,

               And that never would I see his face

                 In God's sweet world again.

               Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

                 We had crossed each other's way:

               But we made no sign, we said no word,

                 We had no word to say;

               For we did not meet in the holy night,

                 But in the shameful day.

               A prison wall was round us both,

                 Two outcast men were we:

               The world had thrust us from its heart,

                 And God from out His care:

               And the iron gin that waits for Sin

                 Had caught us in its snare.

               In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,

                 And the dripping wall is high,

               So it was there he took the air

                 Beneath the leaden sky,

               And by each side a Warder walked,

                 For fear the man might die.

               Or else he sat with those who watched

                 His anguish night and day;

               Who watched him when he rose to weep,

                 And when he crouched to pray;

               Who watched him lest himself should rob

                 Their scaffold of its prey.

               The Governor was strong upon

                 The Regulations Act:

               The Doctor said that Death was but

                 A scientific fact:

               And twice a day the Chaplain called

                 And left a little tract.

               And twice a day he smoked his pipe,

                 And drank his quart of beer:

               His soul was resolute, and held

                 No hiding-place for fear;

               He often said that he was glad

                 The hangman's hands were near.

               But why he said so strange a thing

                 No Warder dared to ask:

               For he to whom a watcher's doom

                 Is given as his task,

               Must set a lock upon his lips,

                 And make his face a mask.

               Or else he might be moved, and try

                 To comfort or console:

               And what should Human Pity do

                 Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

               What word of grace in such a place

                 Could help a brother's soul?

               With slouch and swing around the ring

                 We trod the Fool's 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.

               With yawning mouth the yellow hole

                 Gaped for a living thing;

               The very mud cried out for blood

                 To the thirsty asphalte ring:

               And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair

                 Some prisoner had to swing.

               Right in we went, with soul intent

                 On Death and Dread and Doom:

               The hangman, with his little bag,

                 Went shuffling through the gloom

               And each man trembled as he crept

                 Into his numbered tomb.

               That night the empty corridors

                 Were full of forms of Fear,

               And up and down the iron town

                 Stole feet we could not hear,

               And through the bars that hide the stars

                 White faces seemed to peer.

               He lay as one who lies and dreams

                 In a pleasant meadow-land,

               The watcher watched him as he slept,

                 And could not understand

               How one could sleep so sweet a sleep

                 With a hangman close at hand?

               But there is no sleep when men must weep

                 Who never yet have wept:

               So we – the fool, the fraud, the knave —

                 That endless vigil kept,

               And through each brain on hands of pain

                 Another's terror crept.

               Alas! it is a fearful thing

                 To feel another's guilt!

               For, right within, the sword of Sin

                 Pierced to its poisoned hilt,

               And as molten lead were the tears we shed

                 For the blood we had not spilt.

               The Warders with their shoes of felt

                 Crept by each padlocked door,

               And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,

                 Grey figures on the floor,

               And wondered why men knelt to pray

                 Who never prayed before.

               All through the night we knelt and prayed,

                 Mad mourners of a corpse!

               The troubled plumes of midnight were

                 The plumes upon a hearse:

               And bitter wine upon a sponge

                 Was the savior of Remorse.

               The cock crew, the red cock crew,

                 But never came the day:

               And crooked shape of Terror crouched,

                 In the corners where we lay:

               And each evil sprite that walks by night

                 Before us seemed to play.

               They glided past, they glided fast,

                 Like travelers through a mist:

               They mocked the moon in a rigadoon

                 Of delicate turn and twist,

               And with formal pace and loathsome grace

                 The phantoms kept their tryst.

               With mop and mow, we saw them go,

                 Slim shadows hand in hand:

               About, about, in ghostly rout

                 They trod a saraband:

               And the damned grotesques made arabesques,

                 Like the wind upon the sand!

               With the pirouettes of marionettes,

                 They tripped on pointed tread:

               But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,

                 As their grisly masque they led,

               And loud they sang, and loud they sang,

                 For they sang to wake the dead.

               "Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,

                 But fettered limbs go lame!

               And once, or twice, to throw the dice

                 Is a gentlemanly game,

               But he does not win who plays with Sin

                 In the secret House of Shame."