On Reading The Ballad Of Reading Jail

For many years fame and fortune on him smiled
The amazing Irish writer Oscar Wilde
Until his sexual preference had him in Reading Jail
In a place where wealth and fame to nothing avail

But his years in prison for him not a waste of time
Since on release he wrote the Ballad Of Reading Jail which in it has memorable rhyme
A poem true to life of it one can say
With words Oscar Wilde was one who had a way

The truth in the Ballad Of Reading Jail will never die
To the humanity of those who uphold the law it does give the lie
Centered around the last days of a wife murderer who was hung for his crime
A poem that has withstood the great test of time

A poem of the inhumanity of people to their fellow kind
The compassionate among jailers never easy to find
Told in a poem of a murderer more noble in his death
Than those who did rob him of his living breath

The story of the last days of a man who had murdered his wife
That tells of the darker side of human life
The truth in the Ballad Of Reading Jail Lives on
Though the life's breath from it's author for eleven decades and seven years has gone.