Household Gods

Autcra. Master, still sad? Crassus. These faint and fearful shores Of time are beaten by the surge of sense, Love worn away—by love?—to indifference. Who knows what god—or demon—she adores? Or in what wood she shelters, or what grove Sees her profane our sacrament of love? Aurcta. I saw her follow ‘The stream in the hollow Where never Apollo Abides. So thick are the trees That never the breeze Stirs them, or sees ‘What satyr inhabits the glen, what nymph in the pools of it hides. Lighter of foot Than a syiph or a fairy, Sinuous, wary, T passed from the airy Lawns, where the flute Of the winds made tremulous music for man. 13