The Ballad of Reading Gaol – Oscar Wilde

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard."

Written after his release from prison, this poem narrates the execution of a fellow inmate, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who killed his wife. Wilde describes the brutal dehumanization of prison life, the haunting terror of the condemned man, and the universal guilt of humanity.

This is Wilde's last and greatest poem. Stripped of his usual irony, it is a raw, powerful plea for prison reform and a meditation on sin and redemption. It remains one of the most famous poems in the English language.