Rácsai Róbert : Oscar Wilde: A readingi fegyház balladája V.-VI.

I know not whether Laws be right, 
Or whether Laws be wrong; 
All that we know who lie in goal 
Is that the wall is strong; 
And that each day is like a year, 
A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law 
That men have made for Man, 
Since first Man took his brother’s life, 
And the sad world began, 
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff 
With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were 
If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build 
Is built with bricks of shame, 
And bound with bars lest Christ should see 
How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon, 
And blind the goodly sun: 
And they do well to hide their Hell, 
For in it things are done 
That Son of God nor son of Man 
Ever should look upon!

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

For they starve the little frightened child 
Till it weeps both night and day: 
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, 
And gibe the old and grey, 
And some grow mad, and all grow bad, 
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell 
Is foul and dark latrine, 
And the fetid breath of living Death 
Chokes up each grated screen, 
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust 
In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink 
Creeps with a loathsome slime, 
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales 
Is full of chalk and lime, 
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks 
Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst 
Like asp with adder fight, 
We have little care of prison fare, 
For what chills and kills outright 
Is that every stone one lifts by day 
Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart, 
And twilight in one’s cell, 
We turn the crank, or tear the rope, 
Each in his separate Hell, 
And the silence is more awful far 
Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near 
To speak a gentle word: 
And the eye that watches through the door 
Is pitiless and hard: 
And by all forgot, we rot and rot, 
With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain 
Degraded and alone: 
And some men curse, and some men weep, 
And some men make no moan: 
But God’s eternal Laws are kind 
And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks, 
In prison-cell or yard, 
Is as that broken box that gave 
Its treasure to the Lord, 
And filled the unclean leper’s house 
With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break 
And peace of pardon win! 
How else may man make straight his plan 
And cleanse his soul from Sin? 
How else but through a broken heart 
May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat. 
And the stark and staring eyes, 
Waits for the holy hands that took 
The Thief to Paradise; 
And a broken and a contrite heart 
The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law 
Gave him three weeks of life, 
Three little weeks in which to heal 
His soul of his soul’s strife, 
And cleanse from every blot of blood 
The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, 
The hand that held the steel: 
For only blood can wipe out blood, 
And only tears can heal: 
And the crimson stain that was of Cain 
Became Christ’s snow-white seal.

VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town 
There is a pit of shame, 
And in it lies a wretched man 
Eaten by teeth of flame, 
In burning winding-sheet he lies, 
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead, 
In silence let him lie: 
No need to waste the foolish tear, 
Or heave the windy sigh: 
The man had killed the thing he loved, 
And so he had to die.