Think you perchance this is not bitter earnest
Because a woman speaks your bloody sentence
And you’ve ne’er yet known woman but as mother?
Oh, do not hope that even the mildest-souled
Will alter it. The murder she can pardon,
Nay more, can for her murderer raise petition
If he has deigned her so much remnant breath;
Ay, but a shame, a blasting sacrilege
That fills her from the crown to the toe top-full
Of self-recoil—blood only blots that shame!