The Knickerbocker Gallery/The Duellist
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Very truly, Yours &c.
R. T. Conrad
The Duellist.
"Thou shall not kill."
Holy is human life; a mystery Beyond the surgeon's ken, the sage's thought.Whence comes it? Why and whither doth it flee? Science in vain its secret haunt hath sought;Its mystic errand Nature never taught; Man knows not even what bids those heart-springs moveBy which life's current through his frame is wrought; Yet, guiltily presumptuous, looks above,And dares God's heart to search, God's attributes to prove!
Can the white hand of pure and holy Right Be in the hue of human slaughter dyed?Can Piety a pretext find to smite, Making libation of the gashed heart's tide?What right to quench that flame to Heaven allied, Which earth can ne'er relume? Could human deedHave driven our Saviour to a homicide? Dread should the danger be, and dire the needThat asks one sacred life, or bids a nation bleed.
Accurst the miscreant, whose spider care Weaves o'er a people's fate the web of war!Too cold to pity, and too base to dare, He gloats o'er Murder's revel from afar:Selfish, impassive, 't is his part to tar Men's passions on to crime; till, axle-deepIn human gore, they drive the conqueror's car, And call it Glory! Can the monster sleep?Mads be not, as hot waves of blood his couch o'erleap?
Still guiltier, baser, see the Duel ape The strife of realms! With ceremony donHis friends—his friends!—the formal folly shape, And give it murder's form and murder's hue:They please it honor! Honor never knew The idiot crime; but, wise and pure and brave,Is ever unto God and duty true: 'Tis Fashion's law—the breath of sot and knave;[1]Fashion, the fool's God, frowns; he dies, its coward slave!
'T is guiltiest, for Self-murder adda its guilt; And Time and Thought and Sleep against it plead;The gentle sleep who dreams, ere blood in spilt, Hear angels whisper, Dare not do this deed!For 't is not Passion bids the victim bleed; And of the murderer slays when loth to kill.Not erring Nature, Hate, nor Rage, nor Need, His wretched plea: he goes, in conscious ill,Defying God and man, a felon's grave to fill.
'T is basest, for not willingly he goes That whipped and trembling thrall of sordid fear;(Save when the dark life-gamester deftly throws The loaded dice of death; whose life's a sneer,Whose wine is blood, whose banquet-board the bier; The licensed bravo, with his heart of late,And eye of snake, who kills with jocund jeer, And lives to kill; lends on his triumphs wait,And own, abashed, their lord and master, not their mate!)
'T is basest, for not willingly he goes, But lashed by fears that wisdoms would deride;Not fears of life nor law, of friends nor foes, Of conscience outraged, nor of virtuous pride. What then? What can the driveller dread beside? A sneer! From whom? Fools with nor heart nor brain,Whose praise, as unto infamy allied, Ev'n he would shrink from with a just disdain;And yet the craven bows, and basely wears their chain!
The voluntary madman dares not think; From that dread gulf he turns, appalled, away;He dares not, standing on the dark grave's brink, And self-divorced from heaven, he dares not pray.He asks no good man's blessing on that day; But to the field, with guilty stealth, he hies;Brute nerves suffice his brutal part to play. As the fool dieth, should he fall, he dies;Or, victor (honor all!) he, like a felon, flies!
How hath the mighty fallen![2] His country's love, A blissful home, ev'n Virtue's honest scorn;All could not lift the hero's soul above A false and fatal shame. Well might he mournHis bride and babes, left stricken and forlorn; His cause deserted, and his country: stillHe left the fame so nobly won and worn, Conscious and sad, the duellist's grave to fill: False honor's loud call drowned the voice—Thou shalt not kill!
Thus sank the star that from our country's brow Beamed with immortal radiance! And the gain,What was it, of his cold, man-hating foe? He fled from infamy, a wandering Cain;His life a torture, and his name a stain! When will true Honor's sons to teach uniteThat coward Wrong alone incurs disdain; That only deeds which Heaven approves are bright:That courage bides with Truth, and Honor lives in Right!
Philadelphia, September, 1854.