Ancient History

by Siegfried Sassoon (1920) — a poem card from Justes Mots

A modernist retelling of the biblical Cain and Abel story through the perspective of an aged Adam, who mourns the violent death of Abel and his descendants while haunted by the legacy of his killer son Cain. Sassoon's brief, intense poem captures the weight of inherited sin and the sorrow of watching one's lineage consumed by violence and divine judgment. Suitable for meditations on familial tragedy and moral complexity.

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'…

Themes: sympathy · grief · reflection