Explore "The New England Tragedies" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
SCENE I. -- JOHN ENDICOTT's room. Early morning.
JOHN ENDICOTT. / "Why dost thou persecute me, Saul of Tarsus? " / All night these words were ringing in mine ears! / A sorrowful sweet face; a look that pierced me / With meek reproach; a voice of resignation / That had a life of suffering in its tone; / And that was all! And yet I could not sleep, / Or, when I slept, I dreamed that awful dream! / I stood beneath the elm-tree on the Common, / On which the Quakers have been hanged, and heard / A voice, not hers, that cried amid the darkness, / "This is Aceldama, the field of blood! / I will have mercy, and not sacrifice!"