Exerpts from Oscar Wilde's Reading Gaol:
"He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby gray;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by."
"I only knew what haunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey."
"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 give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope."
"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 live more lives than one
More deaths than one must die."
"They think a murderer's heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.
Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?
But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man's despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
That God's Son died for all."
"I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in goal
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.
But this I know, that every Law
That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother's life,
And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
With a most evil fan."
"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 strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
The hand that held the knife.
And with 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 of Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal."
"In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"
although im not particularly religious (im a free thinker), the biblical allusions are pretty nice. but the line that strikes the most is bold and italicised.
"Oscar Wilde's Reading Gaol has the dope twisted. The man was dead, therefore he had to kill the one he loved." - LDJIN Act 4
Get there by candlelight
what we do in H3 Bio to keep michael awake.
twinn's food list:
yang zhou fried rice (crystal jade kitchen)
hor fun
sizzlers
NYDC*
pizza
carrot cake (bukit timah market)
cherry pie with ice cream
chicken rice* (boon tong kee)
homemade laksa (auntie's sister)
that taiwanese place (cheong chin nam street)
pig belly
lasagna
bacon wrapped prawns and char siew (teahouse at raffles city)
Steak medium/medium rare and burger* (Black Angus near Forum)
Banana chocolate cake (Secret Recipe)
Banana Leaf Apollo restaurant
Buffet - Triple 3 (Meritus Mandarin)
michael's food list:
banmian (s11, im guessing -_______-)
sliced fish bee hoon
hokkien mee
ba kut teh*
roti prata*
pigs trotters*
bee beehoon
tao huey
assam laksa from penang
tasty biscuits (the snack label, literally)
seafood spaghetti
roast pork rice
mom's wanton mee
prawn mee
dad's bbq-ed steak
crab bee hoon
zhi char
fried tanghoon
chin chow
chendol
apple pie a la mode
my food list: place and food specific lol
sambal stingray
crab noodles and chng tng (Adam road food centre)
fish and co (glasshouse)
island creamery
mutton pie (Piper's Pies)
pig trotters (gramma's both paternal and maternal)
oreo cheesecake (Secret Recipe)
awfully chocolate fudge cake (Awfully Chocolate)
tiramisu icecream (Venezia)
asam laksa (P'nang p'nang and jurong west market and Gurney Drive in Penang itself!)
xiao long bao* (Ding Tai Fung, for twinn its at Crystal Jade Great World City)
clam chowder (The Soup Spoon)
black pepper crab (Long Beach)
lastly, the best of all, RHEA'S MOM'S COOKING. SLURPS
drool. * means applies to one, ** to all
Get there by candlelight
quick update on life lol.
1. sibu trip - eye-opening. felt good to be back in the outdoors after so long. lots of fish and kayaking. got burnt. brought back sandfly bites for souvenirs.
2. hotwheels - eye-opening, esp xiaoxin's stunt. sleep depriving. buckets of fun.
3. germ left for italy! i miss you germ! have fun over there. amusing time at airport before she left with cheesecake. spent hours chionging the book. :D
4. paycheck arrives! whee. in the bank collecting interest now.
5. vietnam goes into full swing before sept. renewed interest and passion. EOY to be a blast.
6. odac23 rocks!
7. promos are coming in less or equal to 30 days. better start mugging
8. gen and wt are 17! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
9. a certain brat's birthday is coming. coughlichcough. on another note, rhea's bday is coming too!
10. i hate homework AND pw.
grins
Get there by candlelight
went umpiring again. blah. i hope i didnt embarrass myself majorly. i can still remember all the stupid mistakes i made. i think the best game was with nan, where i felt confident enough to call. otherwise it was too slow, and halfway through i lost my rubber band. curses. and mr goh told me not to be so tensed up, which i was during the u17s and sneakers game. sigh. luckily im not around for the second round; in sibu. yayness. any excuse to run away is good.
sibu's sounding really good. :)
odacia was quite fun, but the senior senior seniors were more interested in catching up with each other i guess. ahha. the captains ball game was fun, we played with people from batch TEN. goodness. they are like 30 years old already. and batch 11. 12. 13. blahblah. hahaha. but it was interesting watching them and wondering whether we would be even coming back in ten years time. HMM.
and i like the close, where the band was playing, even though they sounded a bit off this time. but when we all did the 23 cheer, you could feel the old spark, of togetherness. maybe all we have to do is to blow the spark into a flame...
alrighty. time to go pack bag.
Get there by candlelight
today had the long dreaded chem spa. it wasnt too bad, and some people wrote really funny things. ahhaha. grins at cheryl ^^
had the sibu briefing as well; felt the age old excitement bubbling inside me. havent felt that for so long - the looking forward to, the willing for it to come, savouring every moment in the outdoors... i never knew that the outdoors had so much passion to share, when i went to tioman and it set the spark to tinder.
what i like best about it is going there with absolutely no fixed program. which means we can enjoy, meander along if we choose to, spend our time with nature and Gaia, enjoy the feeling of just being alive on the sea or the earth, or halfway down the abseil.
dear eli, haha dont be too distraught. we will explore all the malaysian islands one day :D one by one, and we will take our time to enjoy it yeah. maybe you can go for the land and river one.
dear germ! i miss you a lot! haha. are you coming for odacia and hot wheels! i think sometime on a sibu island, i will be thinking... wish you were here x)
ALPS SEA! im so looking forward to it. :D
Get there by candlelight
bouldering yesterday was funfunfun. haha. we should do more of it next time. or even better still, get the 15m overhang walls. my legs ache, which is weird, because i thought i used more of the arms. and we definitely need some improvement for our climbing techniques, because i think we cling to the wall too often, and which, hopefull more practise and level 2 provides.grins. at least we have started on the practice part.
sibu next week. im quite disappointed in the turnout; i thought more people would turn up. well. hahaha at least the passionate people are going lol. ^^
chem spa tmrow. BAH.
Get there by candlelight
