The country is on the verge of coming apart. Obama has set blacks against whites and whites against blacks and both against Hispanics, to the point where there may not be a coming together as one country ever again. At a busy intersection of a crowded city street, I chanced to glance behind me, and saw, through the summer throng, the ghostly figure of an elderly man dressed in a tattered robe and carrying a sign that read, The End Is Near. Beside him, the ghostly figure of a young woman stared fixedly at me. The young woman approached and whispered in my ear. “A mighty nation has divided,” she said, voice low and ominous, “and the sharp and broken shards have taken the sword one against the other, the blood red blades not to be put down again for thirteen generations. I, Kassandra, the daughter of Hecuba the Queen, prophecy thus.” Still staring fixedly, she faded until gone, with no one there but the elderly man with the sign. He smiled and said, “What will thee believe, young sir, a prophecy that implies that all will be well in thirteen generations, or the evidence of your eyes?” He came closer and said, “In measured time the shards will tire of the sword, and the nation will devolve into a myriad of paper nations as unsubstantial as the morning mist, ruled by princes and usurpers, the evil and the mad. Thus is, and was, the nature of man. Prepare, my son, for the music has stopped, though few as yet have noticed.” With that he smiled again and slowly faded, leaving me again at the busy intersection, surrounded by the smiling summertime crowd of those who have not yet noticed.

That night I dreamed a lonely dream of being home again
Surrounded by the golden gleam of moonlight on the fen
And as I walked beneath the sky so bright with starry light
There came a soft and mournful sigh that filled the darkened night
Kassandra walked beside me and she whispered in my ear
And as she did she touched my hand and said the end is near
Twelve generations now are gone, have perished every one
And yet will come the new born dawn to see the setting sun
For endless war is never done when nations break apart
When brother kills his mother’s son and breaks his mother’s heart
The princes and usurpers and the evil and the mad
Have all the hatred fires fanned and liberty forbade
The prophecy was wrong, she said, the error it was mine
Destruction though, and millions dead, that error it was thine