Chorus.
Ay—but in thine, as in Apollo's strains,
Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.
Cassandra.
Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now—
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!
Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness
Couched with the wolf—her noble mate afar—
Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,
She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord,
With double death—his recompense for me!
Ay, 'tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,
That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!
Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,
Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all—
I stamp you into death, or e'er I die—
Down, to destruction!
Thus I stand revenged—
Go, crown some other with a prophet's woe.
Look! it is he, it is Apollo's self
Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave.
God! while I wore it yet, thou saw'st me mocked
There at my home by each malicious mouth—
To all and each, an undivided scorn.
The name alike and fate of witch and cheat—
- ↑ Though the resemblance is probably accidental, it is impossible not to be reminded of this passage by the last farewell of Meg Merrilies (Guy Mannering, ch. 55)—"When I was in life, I was the mad randy gipsy, that had been scourged, and banished, and branded—that had begged from door to door, and been hounded like a stray tike from parish to parish—wha would hae minded her tale? But now I am a dying woman, and my words will not fall to the ground, any more than the earth will cover my blood!"
