Figures of Several Centuries

by Arthur Symons

And the old man, temporising with his grief, answers:

Thou art subtle and strong.

I would thou hadst spared him—couldst have spared him.

And the son replies:

Sire,

I would so too. Our sire, his sire and mine,

I slew him not for lust of slaying, or hate,

Or aught less like thy wiser spirit and mine.

But Cæsar-Satan has already said the epilogue to the whole representation, when, speaking to his mother, he bids her leave the responsibility of things: