guilty! He who is sitting cold and cruel on the throne and who has
brought all this devastation on the town, is he the same as the one
who whispered sweet words to her? Was it to meet him that she
crept, when the night before she stole her father's keys and opened
the town-gate? And when she found her goldsmith's apprentice a
knight with sword in hand and a steel clad host behind him, what
did she think? Did she go mad at the sight of that stream of steel
surging in through the gate which she had opened? Too late to
bemoan, maiden! Why did you love the enemy of your town? Visby is
fallen, its glory shall pass away. Why did you not throw yourself
down before the gate and let the steel-shod heels trample you to
death? Did you wish to live in order to see heaven's thunder-bolts
strike the transgressor?

Oh maiden, at his side stands Violence and protects him. He has
violated holier things than a trusting maiden. He does not even
spare God's own temple. He breaks away the shining carbuncles from
the church walls to fill the last vat.

The bearing of all the figures in the picture changes. Blind terror
fills everything living. The wildest soldier grows pale; the
burghers turn their eyes towards heaven; all await God's
punishment; all tremble except Violence on the steps of the throne
and the king who is his servant.

I wish that the artist had lived long enough to take me down to the
harbor of Visby and let me see those same burghers, when they
followed the departing fleet with their eyes. They cry curses out
over the waves. "Destroy them!" they cry. "Destroy them! Oh sea,
our friend, take back our treasures! Open thy choking depths under