<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Cassandra</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I <span class="smallcaps">h</span><span class="smallcaps">eard</span> one who said: "Verily,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">What word have I for children here?</p><p class="line">Your Dollar is your only Word,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The wrath of It your only fear.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"You build it altars tall enough</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To make you see, but you are blind;</p><p class="line">You cannot leave it long enough</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To look before you or behind.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"When Reason beckons you to pause,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">You laugh and say that you know best;</p><p class="line">But what it is you know, you keep</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As dark as ingots in a chest.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"You laugh and answer, 'We are young;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">O leave us now, and let us grow.' --</p><p class="line">Not asking how much more of this</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Will Time endure or Fate bestow.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Because a few complacent years</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Have made your peril of your pride,</p><p class="line">Think you that you are to go on</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Forever pampered and untried?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"What lost eclipse of history,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">What bivouac of the marching stars,</p><p class="line">Has given the sign for you to see</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Millenniums and last great wars?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"What unrecorded overthrow</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of all the world has ever known,</p><p class="line">Or even been, has made itself</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So plain to you, and you alone?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A Trinity that even you</p><p class="line">Rate higher than you rate yourselves;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">It pays, it flatters, and it's new.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"And though your very flesh and blood</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Be what your Eagle eats and drinks,</p><p class="line">You'll praise him for the best of birds,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Not knowing what the Eagle thinks.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"The power is yours, but not the sight;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">You see not upon what you tread;</p><p class="line">You have the ages for your guide,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But not the wisdom to be led.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Think you to tread forever down</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The merciless old verities?</p><p class="line">And are you never to have eyes</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To see the world for what it is?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Are you to pay for what you have</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With all you are?" -- No other word</p><p class="line">We caught, but with a laughing crowd</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Moved on. None heeded, and few heard.</p></div><p class="byline">-- Edwin Arlington Robinson.</p></body></html> · Great War