INCENSE, and flesh of swine, and this year's grain, At the new moon, with suppliant hands, bestow, O rustic Phidyle! So naught shall know Thy crops of blight, thy vine of Afric bane, And hale the nurslings of thy flock remain Through the sick apple-tide. Fit victims grow 'Twixt holm and oak upon the Algid snow, Or Alban grass, that with their necks must stain The Pontiff's axe: to thee can scarce avail Thy modest gods with much slain to assail, Whom myrtle crowns and rosemary can please. Lay on the altar a hand pure of fault; More than rich gifts the Powers it shall appease, Though pious but with meal and crackling salt. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I SING OF LOVE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DIRGE OF RORY O'MORE; 1642 by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE [1611] by MICHAEL DRAYTON THE RAGGED WOOD by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THREE SONNETS WRITTEN IN MID-CHANNEL: 2 by ALFRED AUSTIN A HYMN TO JESUS by BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX |