with heart
Aflame with prophecy came she forth her bower.
Over her snowy shoulders tossed her hair
Streaming far down, and wildly blazed her eyes.
Her neck writhed, like a sapling in the wind
Shaken, as moaned and shrieked that noble maid:
"O wretches! into the Land of Darkness now
We are passing; for all round us full of fire
And blood and dismal moan the city is.
Everywhere portents of calamity
Gods show: destruction yawns before your feet.
Fools! ye know not your doom: still ye rejoice
With one consent in madness, who to Troy
Have brought the Argive Horse where ruin lurks!
Oh, ye believe not me, though ne'er so loud
I cry! The Erinyes and the ruthless Fates,
For Helen's spousals madly wroth, through Troy
Dart on wild wings. And ye, ye are banqueting there
In your last feast, on meats befouled with gore,
When now your feet are on the Path of Ghosts!"

Then cried a scoffing voice an ominous word:
"Why doth a raving tongue of evil speech,
Daughter of Priam, make thy lips to cry
Words empty as wind? No maiden modesty
With purity veils thee: thou art compassed round
With ruinous madness; therefore all men scorn
Thee, babbler! Hence, thine evil bodings speak
To the Argives and thyself! For thee doth wait
Anguish and shame yet bitterer than befell
Presumptuous Laocoon. Shame it were
In folly to destroy the Immortals' gift."

So scoffed a Trojan: others in like sort
Cried shame on her, and said she spake but lies,
Saying that ruin and Fate's heavy stroke
Were hard at hand. They knew not their own doom,
And mocked, and thrust her back from that huge Horse
For fain she was to smite its beams apart,
Or burn with ravening fire. She snatched a brand
Of blazing pine-wood from the hearth and ran
In fury: in the other hand she bare
A two-edged halberd: on that Horse of Doom
She rushed, to cause the Trojans to behold
With their own eyes the ambush hidden there.
But straightway from her hands they plucked and flung
Afar the fire and steel, and careless turned
To the feast; for darkened o'er them their last night.
Within the horse the Argives joyed to hear
The uproar of Troy's feasters setting at naught
Cassandra, but they marvelled that she knew
So well the Achaeans' purpose and device.

As mid the hills a furious pantheress,
Which from the steading hounds and shepherd-folk
Drive with fierce rush, with s