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Home  »  Picture-Show  »  16. Ancient History

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). Picture-Show. 1920.

16. Ancient History

ADAM, a brown old vulture in the rain,

Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees;

Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees,

He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain;

‘He was the grandest of them all—was Cain!

‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire;

‘Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain,

‘Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.’

Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair—

A lover with disaster in his face,

And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.

‘Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace?…

‘God always hated Cain’ … He bowed his head—

The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.