Slane

“ For, at the sight of a corpse not of my own making, I have always turned, I confess, utterly a coward. To gaze at a man dead by my sword does not disturb me. I see in it only the evidence that heaven's justice has made use of my hand to give a scoundrel his deserts. But a glimpse of a dead body, that of one not slain by me, makes my head swim, my eyes dazzle, my sinews loosen, my knees knock together. Before such a corpse I am—I may apply to myself what no other man would venture to hint—no better than a craven. ”

“ Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.
And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,
And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,
And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:
“Deny your God, and we will give you life.”
Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!
And it is hard in youth and hope to die ”

“ So deadly is the icy chill, With which the life-blood it congeals, The wounded warrior scarcely feels Its fatal touch ere he expire: But, when Revenge would glut his ire, He stops not with immediate death The current of his victim's breath; With gasp, and intervening pause, The lifeblood from its source he draws, Marks, in the crimson stream that flows, How near life verges to its close,— And its last soul-exhaling groan, To him is music's sweetest tone! ”

“ Whose necks, hung in halters right over the flood,
Are stretched by a wretch all bedabbled with blood!
All five call on “Lincoln” for mercy; when lo!
They are plunged, in a twinkling, to regions below;
Where long in the torrent they struggling remain,
Till the wave spews them up to its surface again;
There howling and writhing, unable to die,
Each visage distorted and bloodshot each eye,
For mercy in vain the assassins still cry!
Ah, Mercy they’ve slain!—Hope for them has no room,
Hell’s no longer a myth,—’tis the parricide’s doom! ”

“ For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge, will I again behold the sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me. ”

“ Aye, before this bleeding sword,
As at an altar, let us kneel to Him.
Theodora.Whose justice, smiting in your hand, laid low
My children’s murderer!
(They kneel before the sword, laid on the grass. The tempest pauses for a moment. The sun gleams on the sword.)
My children’s murderer!From this dungeon’d world,
Where death and madness fill the dark with shrieks,
We thank Thee, uttermost God, for that Thy light
Hath smitten one moment for us. From Thy throne
The lightning came; the bright exceeding flash
Came down and smote him; the lightning of Thy wrath
Devour’d him. ”

“ He answered: “Even so will I as much as I may; and thus wise must thou look upon it, that I love life, and fear not death.”
Then she spake, and again her words fell into rhyme:
“In forty fights hast thou foughten, and been worsted but in four;
And I looked on and was merry; and ever more and more
Wert thou dear to the heart of the Wood-Sun, and the Chooser of the Slain.
But now whereas ye are wending with slaughter-herd and wain
To meet a folk that ye know not, a wonder, a peerless foe,
I fear for thy glory’s waning, and I see thee lying alow.” ”

“ The spirit is slain and the flame is gone, And his blood lies red on the snow fields near it. But again from the dead will the spirit rise, And flash his spears in the northern skies. Then the chief and the queenly Wiwâstè stood Alone in the moon-lit solitude, And she was silent and he was grave. "And fears not my daughter the evil spirit? The strongest warriors and bravest fear it The burning spears are an evil omen; They threaten the wrath of a wicked woman, Or a treacherous foe; but my warriors brave, When danger nears, or the foe appears, Are a cloud of arrows,—a grove of spears." ”

“ Methinks it would not deign to touch my faithless and miserable heart; for life with dishonour and the memory of that which I have lost through guilt would be harder to bear than ten thousand deaths. Alas, sweetheart, had any dared to slay you through mischance or malice, I should quickly have clapped hand to sword to avenge you; ‘tis therefore right that I should not pardon the murderer who has caused your death by a more wicked act than any sword-thrust. Did I know a viler executioner than myself, I would entreat him to put your traitorous lover to death. ”

“ They were strong men, but I was mad with rage, and that awful lust for slaughter which will creep into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are flying, and life and death tremble on the turn. ”

“ Breathed a low wail of fear, and, quivering, closed;
Then the corpse sank back motionless again.
Enough for him. Even the haggard face,
And hair more white than silver, could not make
His heart deceive him. 'Twas her altered form.
The crowd turned to him when that bony hand
Pointed him out, and when surprise was past,
Rushed with a yell upon him. Thus he woke.
The morning drum proclaimed the time was near
When deadly contest between foe and foe
Required his soldier's spirit, and he shook
The influence from him of that dreadful dream,
And went forth to the struggle. ”

“ But hast thou not more special sins than these,
No wrong, no murder?
KNIGHT. Murder have I none,
If murder be to kill a man by stealth
Or in a private quarrel, but in war
I oft have slain my man. I wear a sword
Though nature gave me not a butcher's hand
That loves to use it.—Oh, 't is marvellous
How men will slaughter for the sake of blood,
And Christians too. ”

“ Shall the women eat their fruit, children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? [19] 21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thy anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied. 22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors on every side, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath my enemy consumed. ”

“ What I do not deserve pressed on me to humiliate me makes Murder in me. Regardless of the other one—
—it would be simpler and finer for me to do that Murder than to keep it in me. So many times in a week the trembling smothering longing to do that Murder beats, beats in my thin breast. To be so owned by a thing so small:—it is grief and despair and fury and wild nervous intolerableness. ”

“ I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat, and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you endure, until that period shall arrive."
Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. ”

“ Even the dreadful sentence of death does not shock us, when pronounced upon him; we hear it with solemn satisfaction; and acknowledge the justice of the divine sentence, 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'
"But if this be the case in every common murder, what shall be thought of her who has murdered her husband? the man in whose arms she has lain and whom she has sworn at God's altar to love and cherish. ”

“ If the revolt and treachery of all most dear to him, the hatred of his very flesh and blood, the unceasing enmity of his own sons, a miserable old age, and a heart-broken death-bed—if these things may be deemed Heaven’s vengeance upon murder—then, of a surety, that murder was avenged! ”

“ The Great Spirit sends me to thee, O woman of much sorrow; he asks of thee a great deed of mercy and goodness. Thou hast shed blood, and he is angry. He bids thee to save the life of an enemy—the blood of thy murdered husband flows in her veins. ”

“ Each face is pale, and every eye's askance, As wrapt in dark mysterious intrigue: That Maximus must meditate revenge There's not a doubt; and when he strikes 'Twill be a deadly blow---his arm disdains A mean or vulgar stroke---and his bold spirit Shakes at no resolve---yet 'tis too soon To execute the deed---his dreaded rage, Oh! ”

“ How is it possible to conceive that men whose wounds were always bleeding, who had always acts of vengeance to execute, vengeances to dread, could at a certain epoch impose silence upon their animosities, so as tranquilly to sit beside a mortal enemy? ”

“ My right hand shall not be sparing upon sinners, neither shall the sword cease over them who spill the innocent blood on the earth. Fire shall proceed from out of my wrath, and devour the foundations of the earth, and sinners as if they were inflamed straw. Woe be unto them who offend, and observe not my commandments, saith our Lord, I will not forbear them. ”

“ In the fury and fire of partisan strife, and amid the familiar scenes of blood and death, men trampled upon right, crucified truth, murdered innocence, loved vengeance, despised virtue, abandoned principle, forgot their loves, left their dead unburied and their buried uncoffined, and hung upon the bloody war path like avenging furies. ”

“ How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then—when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. ”

“ I had heard, and that from authority which appeared not to be doubted, that you had been mad enough to engage in a duel, notwithstanding all the principles which I have endeavored to instill into your mind; that you had killed your adversary, and that the slain man was your cousin Henry. Now I have ever held, and have endeavored to teach you to hold, that dueling is not only murder, but murder of the most aggravated kind. The slaughter of the man may take place by accident--by a hasty blow in a moment of passion--in self-defense, when suddenly assailed--or in a general tumult or commotion ”

“ All, therefore, who have been murdered, you, the instigator of the deed, have slain. Nor indeed does the hand of the butcher glow save at the instigation of your tongue; and that terrible heat of the breast is inflamed by your words to take the blood of others,—blood that shall take a just vengeance upon him who shed it. ”

“ Or, if born, had never thriven
In these mournful days of evil!
Death has failed to do his duty,
Sickness sinned in passing by me,
Should have slain me in the cradle,
When the seventh day had ended! ”

“ The actual fact is ever easier to support than the suspense of it. While I ran to the scene of the murder, [Pg 274] with my heart grown too big for my body, and apparently bursting through my side, so complete was the illusion played by terror upon my several senses, that I was absolutely sure that it was the prisoner who was hit, that I had lost a lover, and that the world had lost a hero.
When I arrived breathless upon the battleground, the survivor was kneeling still beside his fallen foe, and appeared to be feeling at his breast. ”

“ Slain, though the raging flood was braved and conquered:
Slain, though escaped the hot pursuit beyond:
Slain in a mutual, last attempt to save
From the wild waters that—than LIFE more dear.
Hard, hard the fate—wrecked when the port was gained!
Shield we from vulture’s greed the sad remains,
By hasty cairn—and breathe a hurried prayer—
’Tis all we can—till worthier rites be paid—
But hark! that shout! “The Colour! lo! the Colour!” ”

“ No leech could aid me now;
The chill of death is at my heart,
Its damp upon my brow.
Weep not—I shame to see such tears
Within a warrior's eyes:
Away! how can ye weep for him
Who in the battle dies? ”

“ A mad horror had forged in him a readiness to commit the crime—and the deep, unconscious image of future murder, dormant in the lower strata of spiritual life, the tormenting itch to murder, a condition of primitive wrath, oppressed his diseased will. ”

“ As for me, killing is a poor revenge; it is too soon over. Do you think I don't mean to be revenged on that skunk Bartley, and, above all, on that scoundrel Hope, who planted the swag in my pockets, and let me into this hole for fourteen years? ”

“ And if he slay him he reigns in his stead until he himself be slain. And the rites of this place are these: all of this tribe who may be guilty of the slaying of a man by secret or open violence without due cause are offered here a sacrifice to the god—and that is the task that I have done and must do till I am myself slain. ”

“ I have slain him; no more will that youth see sunny day; thy slave himself I have as witness; make him swear an oath in God's name (that I did the deed) ; behold the finger and the ring, and I have my knife bloodied. ”

“ I beheld my friend, stretched upon the earth, ghastly with a mortal wound, alone, with no traces of the slayer visible, no tokens by which his place of refuge might be sought, the motives of his enmity or his instruments of mischief might be detected.
I hung over the dying youth, whose insensibility forbade him to recognise his friend, or unfold the cause of his destruction. I accompanied his remains to the grave; I tended the sacred spot where he lay; I once more exercised my penetration and my zeal in pursuit of his assassin. ”

“ And I thought of institutionalized evil & rabid passion for revenge pursued beyond the final resting place-- most private skeletal remains held up as curios. Medieval burning of a heretic's bones, manure pile for those decried damned; the cross-roads drive your cart over the bones of the dead, the remembered suicide's end. ”