Баллада Редингской тюрьмы

I know not whether Laws be right,Or whether Laws be wrong;All that we know who lie in goalIs 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 LawThat 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 chaffWith a most evil fan.This too I know — and wise it were

If each could know the same—That every prison that men buildIs built with bricks of shame,And bound with bars lest Christ should seeHow 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 doneThat Son of God nor son of ManEver should look upon!

* * *

The vilest deeds like poison weedsBloom well in prison-air:

It is only what is good in ManThat wastes and withers there:Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,And the Warder is DespairFor they starve the little frightened childTill 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 dwellIs foul and dark latrine,And the fetid breath of living Death

Chokes up each grated screen,And all, but Lust, is turned to dustIn Humanity's machine.The brackish water that we drinkCreeps with a loathsome slime,And the bitter bread they weigh in scalesIs full of chalk and lime,And Sleep will not lie down, but walksWild-eyed and cries to Time.But though lean Hunger and green ThirstLike asp with adder fight,We have little care of prison fare,For what chills and kills outrightIs 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 farThan the sound of a brazen bell.And never a human voice comes nearTo speak a gentle word:And the eye that watches through the doorIs pitiless and hard:And by all forgot, we rot and rot,With soul and body marred.

* * *