The Ballad

How lucky, those who feel the pain
And love of those around!
The unforgiving tears of hate
And the heart's gentle pound
How does one understand the love
Without one falling down?

With she of her devoted love,
Given none in return.
Of he and his deceitful tales.
Because now she will learn;
His dishonorable truth left
Her broken heart to burn.

'Tis she who ran so far away
Forgetting all but one.
For only one will haunt her dreams
Until the morning sun
And on that day she will avenge
Her dear lover's betray.

And with blurry eyes, what she did find:
The gleaming of a knife.
For now no one will haunt her dreams,
Forget their needless strife.
She dug the knife to his cold heart
Ending her lover's life.

- - -

And, the excerpt from Oscar Wilde's Ballard of Reading Gaol that I was recreating:

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart,
May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat,
And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
His soul of his soul's stife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
The hand that held the knife.

And with the tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was in Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal.