Cassandra's Prophecy

*Cassandra’s Prophecy

Hark! Give ear to the voice mine,
Cassandra, princess and daughter thine,
O! Father, and O! My valiant brother,
I see the dooming clouds gather
Over the shores of Troy
To strike it with thunder to destroy.

O! Father, seest thou not
That the catastrophic doom is brought
By thine own flesh, thy son,
The prince, Paris, who hath won
The affection of another's wife
Enmeshing Troy and Sparta in a strife.

Have trust in my prophetic words,
O! Father, gone are not the hordes
Of Sparta's men back to their land
Causing Troy to celebrate a victory grand,
But their ships are beyond thy eyes
And those of Troy's well-trained spies.

What thou seest is a horse,
Which I know to be a curse,
But thou believest it a gift
Left by the Spartan ships now adrift,
Haul not the wooden horse in,
It's Sparta's clever ruse to win

And set Troy on roaring flames,
O! Father, I see their revelry and games
On the fallen bodies of Troy's hope
Who, with drinks-filled eyes, couldn't cope
With the wide-eyed Sparta's men
Who emerge from the wooden den.

Let not Troy say I was mute
And thy words and belief didn't dispute,
My prophetic words will not fail,
They're on the coffin's last nail,
I've done my duty to Troy
For I have warned thee of Sparta's ploy.

None ever believed my words
While they did the signs of birds
And sought to appease the Heaven
By sacrificing virgins ever so often,
Hark! I shall speak no more
For I see only rivers of gore.

Of Troy I'll not speak any more,
Sparta's ships are back at the shore,
I'll be among the spoils of war
Like many maidens of Troy are,
My beloved Troy, bid me adieu
And weep till I'm lost to your view.

Raghav R
3 Feb. 2019

The poem is Cassandra's prophecy about the fall of Troy, about the cause which resulted in the war of ten long years and of her own life after the end of war.

The text below about Cassandra is sourced from "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable"

*Cassandra. A prophetess. In Greek legend, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, gifted with the power of prophecy; but Apollo, whose advances she had refused, brought it to pass that no one believed her predictions, although they were invariably correct.