He realises the meaning of that "wistful look" towards the vaulted canopy of heaven.
The man had killed the thing he loved.
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each 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."
It has been objected that making sword rhyme with word is a makeshift, but surely it is patent to anyone with any artistic sense whatever that this forced rhyme avoids the danger of making the verse too facile, and, far from being a piece of slovenly writing, is the well-thought-out scheme of a perfect master of his craft. It is one of those stupid objections that superficial critics are so apt to raise when utterly devoid themselves of any sense of proportion or fitness.
The idea that all men, young or old, kill the thing they love is not only original but it is a very fine flight of metaphor—there is a whole sermon in the conception, and Wilde elaborates the theme—
"The kindest use a knife because
The dead so soon grow old."
It is as we read these lines that our thoughts are immediately directed to "The Dream of Eugene Aram," that incomparable masterpiece of another poet, who likewise was looked upon as a mere jester whose work should not be treated seriously, but who has left us three of the finest and most deeply moving poems in the English language. There is a striking resemblance in the wording between the two poems, but without disparaging Hood's work there can be no possible doubt as to which is the greater and more noble achievement.
Another stanza elaborates the theme still further and the fact is recorded that though every man kills the thing he loves, yet death is not always meted out to him.
"He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space."
Within these grim prison walls all the horrible details of execution obtrude themselves upon the wretched captive. He has tasted the horrors of solitary confinement, of being spied on night and day by grim, taciturn warders who, at frequent intervals, slide back the panel in the door to observe through the grated opening that the prisoner is all right. So he can feel all the torture that a man under sentence of death must go through at having to