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
Reading Abbey of the site of the abbey between 1837 and 1840. Its founder was James Wheble, who owned land in the area at that time. Reading Gaol was built in 1844 on the eastern portion of the abbey site, replacing a small county Gaol on the same site. James Wheble sold the rest of his portion of the abbey site to Reading Corporation to create the Forbury Gardens, which were opened in 1861. The inner rubble cores of the walls of many of the major buildings of the abbey still stand. The only parts of the Abbey Church that still exist