Explore "The Wild Knight and other Poems: Thou Shalt not Kill" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I had grown weary of him; of his breath / And hands and features I was sick to death. / Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread; / I did not hate him: but I wished him dead. / And he must with his blank face fill my life -- / Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.
But ere I struck, my soul's grey deserts through / A voice cried, 'Know at least what thing you do. ' / 'This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul, / What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll / There is some living thing for whom this man / Is as seven heavens girt into a span, / For some one soul you take the world away -- / Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!'
Then I cast down the knife upon the ground / And saw that mean man for one moment crowned. / I turned and laughed: for there was no one by -- / The man that I had sought to slay was I.