Get hence, you loathsome
mystery!
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
and bruise him with your agate
breasts!
* * * * *
WHY are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of your sullen ways,
I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent magnificence.
Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light flicker in the lamp,
And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death.
Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake,
Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes,
Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the
hole
Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries.
Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying through the Western
gate!
Away! Or it may be too late to climb their silent silver cars!
See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears the wannish day.
What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth gestures and
unclean,
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a student's cell?
* * * * *
WHAT songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of
the night,
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked, and bade you enter in?
Are there not others more accursed, whiter with leprosies than I?
Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here to slake your thirst?
Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence!
You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be.
You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life,
And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am.
False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx old Charon, leaning on his
oar,
Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to my crucifix,
Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied
eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
IN MEMORIAM
C. T. W.
SOMETIME TROOPER OF THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS
OBIIT H. M. PRISON, READING, BERKSHIRE
JULY 7, 1896
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
I
HE did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A 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 drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
breasts!
* * * * *
WHY are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of your sullen ways,
I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent magnificence.
Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light flicker in the lamp,
And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death.
Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake,
Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes,
Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the
hole
Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries.
Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying through the Western
gate!
Away! Or it may be too late to climb their silent silver cars!
See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears the wannish day.
What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth gestures and
unclean,
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a student's cell?
* * * * *
WHAT songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of
the night,
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked, and bade you enter in?
Are there not others more accursed, whiter with leprosies than I?
Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here to slake your thirst?
Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence!
You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be.
You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life,
And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am.
False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx old Charon, leaning on his
oar,
Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to my crucifix,
Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied
eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
IN MEMORIAM
C. T. W.
SOMETIME TROOPER OF THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS
OBIIT H. M. PRISON, READING, BERKSHIRE
JULY 7, 1896
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
I
HE did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A 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 drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
