--Look you now!
[_Holding up the head of_ HOLOFERNES.
This is the mouth through which commandment came
Of massacre and damnation to the Jews;
Here was the mind the gods that hate our God
Used to empower the agonies they devised
Against us; here your dangers were all made,
Your horrible starvation; and the thirst
Those wicked gods supposed would murder you,
Here a creature became, a ravenous creature;
Yea, here those mighty vigours lived which took,
Like ocean water taking frost, the hate
Those gods have for Jehovah, shaping it
Atrociously into the war that clencht
Their fury about you, frozen into iron.
Jews, here is the head of Holofernes: take it
And let it grin upon our highest wall
Over against the camp of the Assyrians.
[_She throws them the head_.
Ay, you may worry it; now is the jackals' time;
Snarl on your enemy, now he is dead.
_Ozias_.
Judith, be not too scornful of their noise.
There are no words may turn this deed to song:
Praise cannot reach it. Only with such din,
Unmeasured yelling exultation, can
Astonishment speak of it. In me, just now,
Thought was the figure of a god, firm standing,
A dignity like carved Egyptian stone;
Thou like a blow of fire hast splinter'd it;
It is abroad like powder in a wind,
Or like heapt shingle in a furious tide,
Thou having roused the ungovernable waters
My mind is built amidst, a dangerous tower.
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