It thirsts for blood.
But for the most part the songs which relate to violence and bloodshed are the expressions of the remorse that follows the crime, and with a touch of the prevailing mysticism in the reproach of natural objects. The water refuses to quench the thirst of the murderer, and the trees to give him shelter, and he wanders on an endless way haunted by the voice of his crime. The poem entitled The Outcast expresses this feeling of mysterious remorse and unending and unavailing expiation.
THE OUTCAST.
Go not over the little bridge,
It is too old.
The trees that have been felled to the earth
And the birds that still would perch upon their boughs,
Must fly very close to earth.