Context: Oscar Wilde, convicted of sexual perversion, served two years at hard labor in Reading Gaol. The bitterness of the experience and the hopelessness of men isolated from society are reflected in The Ballad of Reading Gaol. The poet, speaking as an inmate, tells of a new prisoner jailed for murdering the woman he loved. The prisoner is to be hanged for his crime, whereas other men who have killed in worse ways walk free. The prisoners go about their work, trying to forget the fate of the condemned man. One evening, however, they see an open grave and know that the execution will take place the next day. All night they keep vigil and pray while phantoms seem to writhe through the prison. When morning arrives, the prisoners know that Death has entered the prison to do his deed. The prisoners lose all hope for the doomed man: