And could not understand

How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:

So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave -
That endless vigil kept,

And through each brain on hands of pain
Another's terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another's guilt!

For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,

And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
Crept by each padlocked door,

And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
Grey figures on the floor,

And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
Mad mourners of a corse!

The troubled plumes of midnight were
The plumes upon a hearse:

And bitter wine upon a sponge
Was the savour of Remorse.

The grey cock crew, the red cock crew,
But never came the day:

And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
In the corners where we lay:

And each evil sprite that walks by night
Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travellers through a mist:

They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,

And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:

About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:

And the damned 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 grisly masque they led,

And loud they sang, and long they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.

'Oho!' 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.'

No things of air these antics were,
That frolicked with such glee:

To men whose lives were held in gyves,
And whose feet might not go free,

Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
Some wheeled in smirking pairs;

With the mincing step of a demirep
Some sidled up the stairs:

And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
But still the night went on:

Through its giant loom the web of gloom
Crept till each thread was spun:

And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:

Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:

O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,

Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,

And I knew that somewhere in the world
God's dreadful dawn was red.

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,

But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,

For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
Nor ride a moon-white steed.

Three yards of cord and a sliding board
Are all the gallows' need:

So with rope of shame the Herald came
To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness grope:

We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or to give our anguish scope:

Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:

It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:

With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
Each tongue was thick with thirst:

For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
That makes a man accursed,

And Fate will use a running noose
For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
Save to wait for the sign to come:

So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
Quiet we sat and dumb:

But each man's heart beat thick and quick,
Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
Smote on the shivering air,

And from all the gaol rose up a wail
Of impotent despair,

Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
From some leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,

We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam,

And heard the prayer the hangman's snare
Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:

For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

IV
There is no chapel on the day

On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,

Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes

Which none should look upon.
So they kept us close till nigh on noon,

And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys

Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,

Each from his separate Hell.
Out into God's sweet air we went,

But not in wonted way,
For this man's face was white with fear,

And that man's face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked

So wistfully" target="_blank" title="ad.渴望地；不满足地">wistfully at the day.
I never saw sad men who looked

With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue

We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed

In happy freedom by.
But there were those amongst us all

Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,

They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,

Whilst they had killed the dead.
For he who sins a second time

Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,

And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,

And makes it bleed in vain!
Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb

With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round

The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,

And no man spoke a word.
Silently we went round and round,

And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things

Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,

And Terror crept behind.
The Warders strutted up and down,

And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,

And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,

By the quicklime on their boots.
For where a grave had opened wide,

There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand

By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,

• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
• midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
• delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
• formal [´fɔ:məl] a.正式的；外表的 (初中英语单词)
• pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
• wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
• dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
• purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
• deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
• running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
• valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
• crystal [´kristəl] n.水晶 a.水晶的 (初中英语单词)
• bloody [´blʌdi] a.(流)血的；血腥的 (初中英语单词)
• chapel [´tʃæpəl] n.小教堂 (初中英语单词)
• careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
• horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
• crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
• damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
• mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
• herald [´herəld] n.先驱；预兆 vt.预示 (高中英语单词)
• anguish [´æŋgwiʃ] n.(极度的)痛苦；苦恼 (高中英语单词)
• monstrous [´mɔnstrəs] a.怪异的；庞大的 (高中英语单词)
• amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
• slippery [´slipəri] a.滑的；不稳固的 (高中英语单词)
• hideous [´hidiəs] a.丑陋的，可怕的 (高中英语单词)
• molten [´məultən] melt的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
• savour [´seivə] n.味道；风味 v.尝到 (英语四级单词)
• filthy [´filθi] a.污秽的，肮脏的 (英语四级单词)
• swerve [swə:v] v.&n.(使)突然转向 (英语四级单词)
• wistful [´wistfəl] a.渴望的；不满足的 (英语四级单词)
• sprite [sprait] n.小妖精；捣蛋鬼 (英语六级单词)
• loathsome [´ləuðsəm] a.讨厌的，令人作呕的 (英语六级单词)
• ghostly [´gəustli] a.鬼的；朦胧的 (英语六级单词)
• weeping [´wi:piŋ] a.&n.哭泣(的) (英语六级单词)
• madman [´mædmən] n.疯子；狂人 (英语六级单词)
• greasy [´gri:si] a.油腻的；润滑的 (英语六级单词)
• wistfully [´wistfuli] ad.渴望地；不满足地 (英语六级单词)
• downcast [´daunkɑ:st] a.沮丧的；向下看的 (英语六级单词)