Баллада Редингской тюрьмы

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,At seven all was still,But the sough and swing of a mighty wingThe prison seemed to fill,For the Lord of Death with icy breathHad entered in to kill.He did not pass in purple pomp,Nor ride a moon-white steed.Three yards of cord and a sliding boardAre all the gallows' need:So with rope of shame the Herald came

To do the secret deed.

* * *

We were as men who through a fenOf filthy darkness grope:We did not dare to breathe a prayer,Or give our anguish scope:Something was dead in each of us,And what was dead was Hope.For Man's grim Justice goes its way,And will not swerve aside:It slays the weak, it slays the strong,It has a deadly stride:

With iron heel it slays the strong,The monstrous parricide!We waited for the stroke of eight:Each tongue was thick with thirst:For the stroke of eight is the stroke of FateThat makes a man accursed,And Fate will use a running nooseFor the best man and the worst.We had no other thing to do,Save to wait for the sign to come:So, like things of stone in a valley lone,

Quiet we sat and dumb:But each man's heart beat thick and quickLike a madman on a drum!

* * *

With sudden shock the prison-clockSmote on the shivering air,And from all the gaol rose up a wailOf impotent despair,Like the sound that frightened marshes hearFrom a leper in his lair.And as one sees most fearful thingsIn the crystal of a dream,

We saw the greasy hempen ropeHooked to the blackened beam,And heard the prayer the hangman's snareStrangled into a scream.And all the woe that moved him soThat he gave that bitter cry,And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,None knew so well as I:For he who live more lives than oneMore deaths than one must die.

IV