Ye righteous Judges of this Christian state,
Ye bid me speak; ye bid me show good cause
Why I, whose hand is red with Christian blood,
Yea, even with the blood of my own child,
Of my own Edith, should not be condemned
To die upon the scaffold, nor be locked
For life within a mad-house: and I speak.
I fear not death; for now that she is dead,
Now that dull silence hath replaced her voice,
Life hath but little charm; and were it not
That to consent to ignominious death
For having acted by command of God
Would be unfit, and might call down His wrath
Upon the land, I think I scarce should take
The pains to plead; but strength hath narrow bounds,
And I confess intolerable fear
Lest ye condemn me to complete my years
Among the mad. O Thou Almighty God
Who for Thy purposes inscrutable
Hast pushed me on and nerved my quaking arm
To slay my child, preserve from such dread fate
One who has offered up what most he loved
Here upon earth, and give unto my tongue
Such eloquence as may convince these men
That I am sane!
I am a self-made man
Grown rich by building engines for the rail,
A man of little learning; one whose youth
Was spent in striking sparks from reddened iron
Amid the roar and clanging of a forge;
Knowing no books except the Book of books,
Whose sacred pages when my work was done
I turned with grimy hands, therein to learn
The will and orders of a jealous God,
A God of wrath, a God whose unseen hand
Falls heavily and chasteningly on all,
And most on them He loveth. Little time
Did I bestow on pleasure and those sports,
Unseemly for the most part, which divert
The spirit from obedience, and prevent
The growth of labour’s fruit; and God allowed
That I should prosper in my worldly wealth.
And that the name of Abraham Carew
Should hold high credit in the market-place,
And that my fellow-townsmen one and all
Should put their faith in my integrity,
Electing me an Elder of the Church
And civil Magistrate. But, as I say,
The Lord doth love to chasten; and He laid,
As years went by and multiplied my store,
Great tribulations on me. One by one
I saw the godly household which had grown
Around me, fall as fell the summer flowers
Around an aged tree when winter nears,
And leave him in his listless loneliness.
One child alone, one twining clinging flower--
Edith, my latest born--remained unnipped,
And in my rash presumption I believed
That God would spare her; for upon her cheek
The hectic spot appeared not which had marked
Her mother and her brethren; and I saw
With sinful joy how she increased in strength
As grew her beauty and her loveliness--
Yea, yea, a sinful joy which was to rouse
The jealousy of God. But if my tongue
Is to convince you of the thing I tell
And justify His ways, oh let me speak--
Oh let me tell you how I loved my child!
I loved her as an old man loves the sun
Which warms his limbs and keeps the palsy off;
I loved her as the plundered miser loves
The small secreted heap that yet remains;
I loved her as the shipwrecked drowning wretch
Loves the frail plank which each approaching wave
May tear from his embrace.
No vain gold chain,
No gaudy ribbon decked her nut-brown hair;
But in such sober raiment as befits
The virgin-mistress of a godly house
She went the round of her domestic duties,
In need of no adornment to enhance
The chaste and holy beauty which she wore
Unconscious to herself, and lived her life
Of cheerfulness and thrift, beloved by all;
Reading at morn and eve the Bible page
To our assembled servants, in a clear
And reverent voice; devoting patient hours
To teaching little children; and by help
Of her own needle, plied while others slept,
Providing winter clothing for the poor
Before the earliest chill of autumn came.
A grave and gracious girl, whose smile of love
Was as a light for my declining years;
Who prized the walks which we were wont to take
Together, through the lanes and ripening corn,
Above all routs and shows. Too great, too great
To please a jealous God, had grown the love
For Edith in my bosom; and at times
I felt a cruel tightening of the heart,
And a prophetic something seem to say
Unto my spirit: “Abraham, beware!
The Lord will claim His rights, and ask again
For that which He hath given unto thee.
Thy love is given to an earthly thing;
A common, natural instinct rules thy life,
And not the love of God.” But on her cheek
The ruddiness of health diminished not,
And I loved on.
There came a Sabbath day,
On which it chanced that at the Meeting House
The Scripture page was read in which it said
How he whose name I bear, in days of yore
Obeyed the dire injunction of the Lord,
And offered up his Isaac. By my side
Edith was sitting listening to the words
With fixed attention, as was e’er her wont.
The light athwart the high and narrow window
Streamed down upon her, lighting up her hair
With golding streakings, just as rays of sun
Light up the seaweed in a tide-left pool,
And played upon her features--ne’er before
Had she appeared so lovely. As my eyes
Were resting thus upon her sitting there,
A fear flashed through my spirit, and I thought:
“What if the Lord were to demand her life,
And bid thee offer up thy only child
As Abraham did Isaac?” and I felt
A strange and frightful struggle stir my soul--
Yea, stir my nature to its inmost depths.
I listened little to the words of prayer;
And on our homeward way, when Edith asked
What made my brow so suddenly o’ercast,
I answered not.
Ye wise and upright men
Who sit to-day deciding on my fate,
Ye wonder at the measure of my speech
Ye miss what ye expected ye would find,
A madman’s incoherence, or the glare
And desperate wild defence of guilt at bay?
Confess, confess, I speak not like the mad.
Oh, I have drilled and disciplined my tongue
In these long months of prison; I
From morn to eve within my narrow cell
Taming my own excitement, so that if,
When came the day of trial, God should make
No outward revelation of the truth
To save His servant, I might yet convince
My judges and the world. He hath not deigned
To make the attestation at my prayer.
No thunder from the blue unclouded sky,
No quaking of the earth hath helped my cause,
And God hath left me only earthly means
To prove to men that what they call a crime
I did by His command.
It came, it came,
That dread command! I had not long to wait;
I seemed to feel it coming; day and night
The frightful expectation filled my soul;
And by a natural instinct, thrice accurst,
The more I dreaded that an angry God,
Roused by the sinful greatness of my love,
Would claim her life, the more my love increased.
It came, it came, the awful summons came!
It was the dead of night: I lay awake;
And in the soundless darkness, all at once,
While on my flesh the hair from fear stood up,
I heard the awful voice: it cried, “Arise,
Take up thy knife, and sacrifice thy child
Whom I bestowed; for I the Lord thy God,
I am a jealous God, and bid thee strike.”
Then came three days of human agony;
The flesh contending with the will of God,
And writhing upward like a trodden snake
Beneath religion’s heel: for I believed
That God would pardon me three days’ delay
To conquer human nature. Once I thought
To tell her all--to ask her for her life--
To call on her obedience to submit--
To shift upon her shoulders half the weight
Of agony and horror; but I looked
Upon her face and set aside the plan,
Misdoubting woman’s strength. In Edith’s eyes
I saw a strange suspicious look--a look
Which told me that the tempest in my soul
Was finding outward vent upon my face.
I caught her watching me, and understood
That if I struck not soon, perchance my arm
Would be restrained by man; so I prepared.
There was a spot beside the sedgy stream,
A solitary spot, which in our walks
We sometimes crossed. I led her out that way.
It was a hot close day; no ray of sun
Shone through the lowering clouds, and now and then
The thunder’s distant rumble met the ear.
We reached the lonely river-bank. I stopped,
And was about to do it, when she laid
Her hand upon my arm with a caress,
And asked me in her sweet familiar voice
To pluck a water-lily, which I did,
And then walked on, for somehow I was balked;
I could not do it.
With the fall of night
The pent-up tempest burst; and in its roar
I seemed to hear God’s formidable wrath.
I heard it in the howling of the wind;
I heard it in the pelting of the rain
Against the windows; and each rattling peal,
Each burst of rolling echo in the dark
Which made me cower like a chastened hound
Recalled me to obedience. But the flesh,
The strong rebellious flesh, oh how it writhed
Against the spirit! How the natural love,
The common human instinct, fought and fought,
And, backed by Satan’s whisper, held its own!
At length the spirit conquered, and I rose
To do the will of God; but, in my crushed
And humbled anguish, I implored the Lord
To stay my lifted arm, and at the last
To save her life as Isaac’s had been saved.
Then I went up the stairs, as if each step
Were a delay, a respite, and a hope,
And sought the chamber where my Edith slept.
The walk had worn her limbs; her sleep was deep.
The storm had not aroused her; nor did I.
I kissed her, and I slew her; for the Lord
Did not vouchsafe to stay His servant’s arm.
For one short moment after she was dead,
I thought perchance that He would bring her back
To life. But all was silent there.
And now,
Ye righteous judges of this Christian land,
Ye godly Elders, look me in the face.
Ye know ye dare not hang me. Will ye dare
To place me in the madhouse for a deed
Which God Himself exacted--which ye teach
Your children to revere in Abraham
From year to year? Ye know ye dare not do it.
And if ye ask me how I knew God’s voice,
Ask of the shepherd’s watch-dog how he knows
His master’s call when darkness girds the fold!
Ye know that Abraham of old, if now
He stood before you, could at your command
Give you no other answer. It was God
Who, putting to the test His servant’s faith,
Impelled my hand. Ye may not judge this deed.