How do you kill?

"I only knew what hunted thought
quickened his step, and
why he looked upon the garish day
with such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
and so he had to die.

Yet each man
kills the thing he loves,
by each let this be heard,
some do it with a bitter look,
some with a flattering word,
the coward does it with a
kiss, the brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are
young, and some when they are old;
some strangle with the hands of Lust,
some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife because
the dead so soon grow cold."

-The ballad of Reading Gaol. Oscar Wilde