THE PAINTED GARDEN...

Okay, it's honor an Irishman Day, and the Irishman of the hour is Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. (Oscar Wilde) The man was brilliant he was also what my friend Sharon would call "A waste of skin." But I enjoy his wit, insight, his passion and his imagination. His quotes are legendary and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is one of my very favorite stories.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is also a favorite poem. I have chosen just a few verses that touch me. Wilde spent several years incarcerated at Reading Gaol for debauchery and died in 1900 a few years after he was released. The photo is part of the gaol ruins still standing.

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor dead woman whom he loved,

And murdered in her bed………

……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!
Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.
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.
He does not sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day;

Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray;

Who watch him lest himself should rob

The prison of its prey....
Oscar Wilde