preložila: Jana Kantorová-Báliková
Utrpenie iných v ňom vyvolalo oveľa väčšiu ľútosť než jeho vlastné. Jeho súcit s obeťami, odsúdenými na smrť sa odrazil v najbolestivejšej balade písanej v anglickom jazyku. Hesketh Pearson, 1954
pre milovníkov angličtiny:
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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.
"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."
I never saw sad men who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
We prisoners called the sky,
And at every happy cloud that passed
In such strange freedom by.
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 all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Nikdy som oči nevidel až tak sa túžbou chvieť
Oscar Wilde a jeho milovaný Alfred
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