The Ballad of Reading Gaol the poem was chosen as the epitaph on Wilde's tomb; <poem>And alien tears will fill for him, For his mourners will be outcast men, <poem>So with curious eyes and sick surmise We watched him day by day, And wondered if each one of us Would end the self-same way, For none can tell to what red Hell His sightless soul may stray.</poem> The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol () on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading
Hay Gaol a haunting sound and light display in the cell block. The Gaol and surrounding grounds were reserved for the Preservation of Historic Sites and Buildings by notification in the "Government Gazette" of 6 June 1975. It is now a museum and cultural centre and is open every day between 9am and 5pm. The Hay Gaol is an example of James Barnet's Hay-type gaol, a classification defined by JS Kerr in his 1988 book "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" in which Kerr differentiates Barnet's Hay-type gaol from the more common Braidwood-type gaol design of the previous colonial architect. The main