Excerpt from The Ballad of Reading Gaol For we did not meet in the holy night, But in the shameful day. A rison wall was round as both, wo outcast men we were The world had thrust us from its heart, And God from out His care: And the iron gin that waits for Sin Had caught us in its snare. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.