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JUDAS ISCARIOT. LOST! lost! Forever lost! I have betrayed | |
| The innocent blood! O God! if thou art love, | |
| Why didst thou leave me naked to the tempter? | |
| Why didst thou not commission thy swift lightning | |
| To strike me dead? or why did I not perish | 5 |
| With those by Herod slain, the innocent children | |
| Who went with playthings in their little hands | |
| Into the darkness of the other world, | |
| As if to bed? Or wherefore was I born, | |
| If thou in thy foreknowledge didst perceive | 10 |
| All that I am, and all that I must be? | |
| I know I am not generous, am not gentle, | |
| Like other men; but I have tried to be, | |
| And I have failed. I thought by following Him | |
| I should grow like Him; but the unclean spirit | 15 |
| That from my childhood up hath tortured me | |
| Hath been too cunning and too strong for me. | |
| Am I to blame for this? Am I to blame | |
| Because I cannot love, and ne’er have known | |
| The love of woman or the love of children? | 20 |
| It is a curse and a fatality, | |
| A mark, that hath been set upon my forehead, | |
| That none shall slay me, for it were a mercy | |
| That I were dead, or never had been born. | |
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| Too late! too late! I shall not see Him more | 25 |
| Among the living. That sweet, patient face | |
| Will never more rebuke me, nor those lips | |
| Repeat the words: One of you shall betray me! | |
| It stung me into madness. How I loved, | |
| Yet hated Him! But in the other world! | 30 |
| I will be there before Him, and will wait | |
| Until he comes, and fall down on my knees | |
| And kiss his feet, imploring pardon, pardon! | |
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| I heard Him say: All sins shall be forgiven, | |
| Except the sin against the Holy Ghost. | 35 |
| That shall not be forgiven in this world, | |
| Nor in the world to come. Is that my sin? | |
| Have I offended so there is no hope | |
| Here nor hereafter? That I soon shall know. | |
| O God, have mercy! Christ have mercy on me! Throws himself headlong from the cliff. | 40 |
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