(From “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”)
By Oscar Wilde
(English poet and dramatist, 1856-1900, leader of the so-called “esthetes.” The poem from which these extracts are taken was the fruit of his long imprisonment, and is one of the most moving and terrible narratives in English poetry)
With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fools’ Parade;
We did not care; we knew we were
The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.
We tore the tarry rope to shreds