Slain Quotes - page 5
There's feasting spread in gorgeous halls,
The lamps flash round the city walls,
And many a flood of lustre falls
O'er many an honoured name.
Turn thou from this, and enter where
Some mother weeps o'er her despair,
Some desolate bride rends her rich hair,
Some orphan joins the cry !
Then back again to the death plain,
Where lie those whom they weep in vain,
And ask, in gazing on the slain,
What art thou, Victory ?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The book is nowhere a call to leave the world, but everywhere an interpretation of common life as the path to that which lies beyond. "Better for a man is his own duty, however, badly done than the duty of another, though that be easy. "Holding gain and loss as one, prepare for battle." That the man who throws away his weapons, and permits himself to be slain, unresisting in the battle, is not the hero of religion, but a sluggard and a coward; that the true seer is he who carries his vision into action, regardless of the consequences to himself; this is the doctrine of the "Gita" repeated again and again....Not the withdrawn, but the transfigured life, radiant, with power and energy, triumphant in its selflessness, is religion. "Arise!" thunders the voice of Sri Krishna, "and be thou an apparent cause!"
Sister Nivedita