Your wives may answer that, whose babes
Their firstborn ye do take and offer up
To this abhorred snake, while yet the milk
Is in their innocent mouths,--your maiden babes
Tender. Your slaves may answer that,--the gangs
Whose eyes ye did put out to make them work
By night unwitting (yea, by multitudes
They work upon the wheel in chains). Your friends
May answer that,--(their bleached bones cry out.)
For ye did, wickedly, to eat their lands,
Turn on their valleys, in a time of peace,
The rivers, and they, choking in the night,
Died unavenged. But rather (for I leave
To tell of more, the time would be so long
To do it, and your time, O mighty ones,
Is short),--but rather say, 'We sinners know
Why the Judge standeth at the door,' and turn
While yet there may be respite, and repent.
"'Or else,' saith He that formed you, 'I swear,
By all the silence of the times to come,
By the solemnities of death,--yea, more,.
By Mine own power and love which ye have scorned,
That I will come.
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