]]> Oscar Wilde (184? –19?? )

The Ballad of the Redding Geole is certainly one of the sadest poem this witty man has written. It is full of gore and morbidity, but it is also a very touching look life gone by while one was dancing and frivolously enjoying the profound superficiality of life. A short extract of this long poem has become Elsie Dee's song "The Gallows". ]]> Oscar Wilde (184? –19?? )

The Ballad of the Redding Geole cierto es uno de los mas triste poemas de ese comico victoriano, pero es mas bien una vista nostalgica sobre una juventud passada cantando y gozando con frivolidad la superficialidad de la vida. The Gallows es un extracto corto de ese largo poema. ]]> Oscar Wilde (184? –19?? )

The Ballad of the Redding Geole cierto es uno de los mas triste poemas de ese comico victoriano, pero es mas bien una vista nostálgica sobre una juventud passada cantando y gozando con frivolidad la superficialidad de la vida. The gallows es un extracto corto de ese largo poema. ]]> The Gallows It’s sweet to dance to violins
When love and life are fair
To dance to flutes to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare
But it’s not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air

With mob and mow we saw them go
Slim shadows hand in hand
About about in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband
And the dammed grotesques made arabesques
Like the wind upon the sand

With the pirouettes of marionettes
They tripped on pointed tread
But with flutes of fear they filled the ear
As their grizzly masque they led
And loud they sang and long they sang
For they sang to wake the dead

Oh ho 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

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