The ballad is certainly moving JTT - the first time I recited it in public a woman was in tears at the end. (But another shouted out: "So domestic violence is OK - is that what you're saying?") But as poetry it's a bit laboured. The imagery is often crude or trite: "the Governor all in shiny black /With the yellow face of Doom" and as with De Profundis the effect is sometimes undermined by self-pity that sometimes creeps in. Housman is much less sentimental, and probably more effective for that reason: "There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail tonight/Or wakes as may betide, A better lad if things went right/Than most that sleep outside." Incidentally, Bosie, who was himself an accomplished poet, wrote a sonnet about Wilde ("Dead Poet"?) - intensely moving, and also fine verse, see Bosie's sonnet about Wilde ("Dead Poet"?)

I don't think you've been entirely fair to Bosie, Jim. Though De Profundis was a private letter from Wilde to Bosie, Bosie never received it and learnt of its bitterness towards him only when extracts appeared in a book, many years after Wilde's death. He himself was then embittered for some years, but he got that out of his system long before he died (1945). Through Wilde's trials and afterwards, Bosie was almost recklessly disregarding of his own reputation in his support, though there is evidence that some in Wilde's (diminishing) circle wanted Wilde to break with him. They met in Italy after Wilde's release from prison, and Bosie was chief mourner at Wilde's funeral. Bosie did convert to catholicism, but I was not aware that he ever had anything but contempt for his father.