The old lion, flowed over,
Died at war’s end.  Not his war:
He knew the bud bore some flower of evil.
What Gov hath taken unto himself

Gnawed his moral fiber.  He knew
The enterprise as failure from the start.
No society of saints and sages,
No Alfred to Great our Moloch

Or hallow an unholy “human interest”.
O Cassandra, how hath Agamemnon
Neglected thee to his peril.
Thy bow sung, the arrow arrested in flight.

I come to Lionsgrave in the virgin field,
There to sing requiem and take up the arrow.
Si Pergama dextra defendi possent
etiam hac defensa fuissent.

What more can I say of a prophet
Crying alone in the wilderness?
He cries.

[Editor’s note: the poem contains direct hints of the riddle’s solution]