Emblems Of Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 149 pages of information about Emblems Of Love.

Emblems Of Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 149 pages of information about Emblems Of Love.
     [Holding up the head of HOLOFERNES. 
This is the mouth through which commandment came
Of massacre and damnation to the Jews;
Here was the mind the gods that hate our God
Used to empower the agonies they devised
Against us; here your dangers were all made,
Your horrible starvation; and the thirst
Those wicked gods supposed would murder you,
Here a creature became, a ravenous creature;
Yea, here those mighty vigours lived which took,
Like ocean water taking frost, the hate
Those gods have for Jehovah, shaping it
Atrociously into the war that clencht
Their fury about you, frozen into iron. 
Jews, here is the head of Holofernes:  take it
And let it grin upon our highest wall
Over against the camp of the Assyrians.
     [She throws them the head
Ay, you may worry it; now is the jackals’ time;
Snarl on your enemy, now he is dead.

Ozias
Judith, be not too scornful of their noise. 
There are no words may turn this deed to song: 
Praise cannot reach it.  Only with such din,
Unmeasured yelling exultation, can
Astonishment speak of it.  In me, just now,
Thought was the figure of a god, firm standing,
A dignity like carved Egyptian stone;
Thou like a blow of fire hast splinter’d it;
It is abroad like powder in a wind,
Or like heapt shingle in a furious tide,
Thou having roused the ungovernable waters
My mind is built amidst, a dangerous tower. 
My spirit therein dwelling, so overwhelmed
In joy or fear, disturbance without name,
Out of the rivers it is fallen in
Can snatch no substance it may shape to words
Answerable to thy prowess and thy praise. 
We are all abasht by thee, and only know
To worship thee with shouts and astounded passion.

Judith.  Yes, now the world has got a voice against me:  At last now it may howl a triumph about me.

Ozias.  This, nevertheless, my thought can seize from out The wildness that goes pouring past it.  God, Wondrously having moved thee to this deed, Hath shown the Jews a wondrous favouring love.  Thee it becomes not, standing though thou art On this high action, to think scorn of men Whom God thinks worthy of having thee for saviour.

Judith.  This is a subtle flattery.  What know I Of whom God loves, of whom God hates?  I know This only:  in my home, in my soul’s chamber, A filthy verminous beast hath made his lair.  I let him in; I let this grim lust in; Not only did not bolt my doors against His forcing, but even put them wide and watcht Him coming in, to make my house his stable.  What though I killed him afterward?  All my place, And all the air I live in, is foul with him.  I killed him?  Truly, I am mixt with him; Death must have me before it hath all him.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Emblems Of Love from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.