Sonnet XIII

Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
We drenched the altars of Love’s sacred grove,
Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after
The launching of the coloured moths of Love.
Love’s proper myrtle and his mother’s zone
We bound about our irreligious brows,
And fettered him with garlands of our own,
And spread a banquet in his frugal house.
Not yet the god has spoken; but I fear
Though we should break our bodies in his flame,
And pour our blood upon his altar, here
Henceforward is a grove without a name,
A pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan,
Whence flee forever a woman and a man.