Tuesday, June 03, 2008
CASSANDRA*
Out! Out! Out damned light!
Depart thee thence from my inner sight.
Go back now to the one who sent you,
Whose vengeance has drawn its due.
Take along thy load of woe and go,
With burdensome gift that troubles so.
For with thy gift came such a curse,
Haunting to make my life much worse.
Oh, that thy gift had come to me alone,
Not to thy curse bound and sewn;
Making me the least pleased of men,
Who has dared take up his ink and pen.
To be granted first the gift of foresight,
Then damned with disbelief as thy spite;
Better that I’d never had such a gift at all,
Than to lose all trust, as beyond the pall
Of reality and known process of reason,
In this ordained political pundits’ season.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
2008
* Cassandra, the beautiful princess of Troy and mythical character in Homer’s Iliad, was granted a gift of prophecy from the god Apollo. This gift was later confounded in jealous anger with the curse that none of her prophecies, though true, would be believed.
Depart thee thence from my inner sight.
Go back now to the one who sent you,
Whose vengeance has drawn its due.
Take along thy load of woe and go,
With burdensome gift that troubles so.
For with thy gift came such a curse,
Haunting to make my life much worse.
Oh, that thy gift had come to me alone,
Not to thy curse bound and sewn;
Making me the least pleased of men,
Who has dared take up his ink and pen.
To be granted first the gift of foresight,
Then damned with disbelief as thy spite;
Better that I’d never had such a gift at all,
Than to lose all trust, as beyond the pall
Of reality and known process of reason,
In this ordained political pundits’ season.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
2008
* Cassandra, the beautiful princess of Troy and mythical character in Homer’s Iliad, was granted a gift of prophecy from the god Apollo. This gift was later confounded in jealous anger with the curse that none of her prophecies, though true, would be believed.
