Incarnadined Hands

What is a man? Is he the sum of his beliefs?
Or is he measured by the depths of his misdeeds?
Is he but flesh and bone? The sum of component parts?
Is he what he has wrought? Or what he has torn apart?

Our abhorrent enterprise, so deeply despised
But evidence, I'll provide, to spare my own hide

I'll send burke to his grave
To be betrayed​ ​by incarnadined hands

Am I a butcher uncouth?
The telltale truth​ ​are these incarnadined hands

Am I a slaughterer or a surgeon? A taker or giver of life?
A thief or a murderer? For which crime am I to be tried?

So many I've anatomized, truly I was desensitized
I never failed to edify, ​hare: ​ nor to brutalize

​The stain of the grave
I am betrayed by incarnadined hands

The meager length of the noose
The punishment due for incarnadined hands

Please, tell me who I am
Please, tell me who I am!

What is a man? Is he the end or is he the means?
​For lucre's gleam, undertaking hideous misdeeds

​I once thought I knew, but now I see it true
When you look into death, it looks back into you

​The stain of the grave
I am betrayed​ ​by incarnadined hands

The meager length of the noose
The punishment due​ ​for incarnadined hands

Please, tell me who I am