Sacrifice: blood story.

"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" is a poem by Wilfred Owen that compares the ascent of Abraham to Mount Moriah and his near-sacrifice of Isaac there with the start of World War I. It had first been published by Siegfried Sassoon in 1920 with the title "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young", without the last line: "And half the seed of Europe, one by one". The poem is an allusion to a story in the Bible, Genesis 22:1-18. 

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

his poem is in the public domain.