Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves

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.

~"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

O! :(

Aaron said...

Chana,do you believe that love itself corrupts or alters it's object? What do you think?

Uri said...

Didn't Wilde slash his wife's throat?
Some people kill the thing they love with despicable actions , some with unkind words and some with thoughtless and hurtful behaviors.

A thought-provoking piece as usual.

AK said...

Uri,dito!
Chana,great post!

Yoni said...

The thief who kills the thing he loves is sometimes another being who lives inside us. Often he is the child we once were and then abandoned prematurely. He is someone who never learned to truly love the person who made him come alive and shine.

Great post indeed!

Tobie said...

Uri: Wilde did not murder his wife. He was in prison after having being convicted of homosexuality and wrote the poem presumably about a fellow inmate, who was on death row for murder.