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John Masefield writes The Ballad of Reading Gaol
We must go down to the gallows again, to the lonely gallows and see
This wretched man, like many here, who never will be free:
With the wistful eyes and the swollen purple throat, with blood on his hands;
For each man kills the thing he loves, which nobody understands.
We must go down to the gallows again, to the gallows where bad men die,
But I’ll look up at that tent of blue we prisoners call the sky,
And the man who killed the thing he loved, the man whose life they’re taking,
Will swing from a rope and cleanse his soul of sin, while hearts are breaking.
We must go down to the gallows again, where the man who used a knife
Will pay the price, in a pit of shame, for taking a woman’s life.
And for those who do such deeds as this the end is always the same:
A trial, a cell, then hanged by the neck, and a grave without a name.
Oscar Wilde writes Sea Fever
I really miss the English coast,
xxFor sea and sky are blue,
And sea and sky are on my mind
xxPerpetually, it’s true.
Tall ships and stars, white sails and wind,
xxI miss all those things too.
I really must go down again
xxTo hear the sea-gulls cry,
To see the spume and feel the spray
xxAnd watch the clouds roll by.
And all I ask is P and Q
xxWhen it’s time for me to die!
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