But oh, the sin!--the sin! I have betrayed
The innocent blood, and I am lost!--am lost!'
So crying, round his face his robes he threw,
And blindly rushed away; and we, aghast,
Looked round--and no one for a moment spoke.
"Seeing that face, I could but fear the end;
For death was in it, looking through his eyes.
Nor could I follow to arrest the fate
That drove him madly on with scorpion whip.
"At last the duty of the day was done,
And night came on. Forth from the gates I went,
Anxious and pained by many a dubious thought,
To seek for Judas, and to comfort him.
The sky was dark with heavy lowering clouds;
A lifeless, stifling air weighed on the world;
A dreadful silence like a nightmare lay
Crouched on its bosom, waiting, grim and grey.
In horrible suspense of some dread thing.
A creeping sense of death, a sickening smell,
Infected the dull breathing of the wind.
A thrill of ghosts went by me now and then,
And made my flesh creep as I wandered on.
At last I came to where a cedar stretched
Its black arms out beneath a dusky rock,
And, passing through its shadow, all at once
I started; for against the dubious light
A dark and heavy mass that to and fro
Slung slowly with its weight, before me grew.
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