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No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:                        

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign’d; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem.  Me, of these
Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
“twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.  There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence!  As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves!  But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with ******* slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?  Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things.  Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild.  Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet *******
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
To whom the ****** majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austere composure thus replied.
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel over-heard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain,
Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could ******
Angels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
But bid her well be ware, and still *****;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not fre
Marsha Singh Dec 2010
Stay away from the voodoo, love.

Resist

the swamp music
the bells on her ankles
her feathered fan

and when she sways
at the hip—

goddess of sudden changes
patroness of prostitutes
and abandoned lovers—

chanting Mambo, terrible beauty.

Say nothing

when she leans close
(cinnamon, tree bark and, faintly, smoke)
and breathes

If you have no altar,
I am your altar.


Stay away from the voodoo, love—

her drumbeats and cypress trees,
her hocus pocus
honeylocust.
shayla ennis Mar 2015
Isis a goddess of magic
Stars shooting like diamonds
Shielding a child’s dreams
Patroness to nature
A defender of the dead
Timeless giver of life
Garden of life’s oases
Every star a child
Every constellation a shield
Men her warriors
The sky a bed of hope
A silken blanket
Nature her weapon to wield

By scarlet rose
written on 3-10-2015
I

Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav’nly Infants birth,
My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In Wintry solstice like the shortn’d light
Soon swallow’d up in dark and long out-living night.

II

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,
Which on our dearest Lord did sease er’e long,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so,
Which he for us did freely undergo.
Most perfect Heroe, try’d in heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.

III

He sov’ran Priest stooping his regall head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,
His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a Mask was there, what a disguise!
Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,
Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens side.

IV

These latter scenes confine my roving vers,
To this Horizon is my Phoebus bound,
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found;
Loud o’re the rest Cremona’s Trump doth sound;
Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of Lute, or Viol still, more apt for mournful things.

V

Befriend me night best Patroness of grief,
Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatterd fancy to belief,
That Heav’n and Earth are colour’d with my wo;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know:
The leaves should all be black wheron I write,
And letters where my tears have washt a wannish white.

VI

See see the Chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl’d the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit som transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious Towers, now sunk in guiltles blood;
There doth my soul in holy vision sit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatick fit.

VII

Mine eye hath found that sad Sepulchral rock
That was the Casket of Heav’ns richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,
Yet on the softned Quarry would I score
My plaining vers as lively as before;
For sure so well instructed are my tears,
They would fitly fall in order’d Characters.

VIII

I thence hurried on viewles wing,
Take up a weeping on the Mountains wilde,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unboosom all their Echoes milde,
And I (for grief is easily beguild)
Might think th’infection of my sorrows bound,
Had got a race of mourners on som pregnant cloud.

Note: This subject the Author finding to be above the yeers he had,
when he wrote it, and nothing satisfi’d with what was begun,
left it unfinish’d.
some souls burn the brightest only after seeing the abysmal darkness. we will not be extinguished, as our worth is indescribable. the universe would not exert such ferocity to keep us here if we weren't meant for something ineffable – the changes we shall elicit in the world: together.
yet in this testament, the truth comes to light. our souls have been tied together from the dawn of time; reliving countless lives. the scriptures forgot about us. mythology mentions us; but fails to depict us in the same tangent, let alone together.
we are more than the greek goddesses and muses, we encompass the celestial bodies of the heavens. artemis aurora, and calliope polaris.
you are the goddess of the hunt, protector and patroness of the forest; as your ribbons fill the night with ethereal glowing light.
I am the muse of epic poetry who hangs above the sky, guiding lost travelers when the universe was still a child.
we come together upon the call of night to fulfill our destinies until the end of eternity, or until the galaxy burns out and we are born anew. maybe then will we be one; as it was meant to be.
but until that time finally comes, I am satisfied just to share the sky with you; hoping that I may catch a glimpse of the green mysticism that you weave each night.
a prophet ballad between kindred spirits. february 15th, 2015
From Lepanto, the Armis Christi appeared exhausted, with fiery eyes volatilized in stratospheres that Belligerent received them. As if they were extraterrestrial castes seated in inflexible breath, floating from their chin in fuss and idiosyncrasy. They arrived cracking the pristine sections from Tel Gomel…, when they arrived a military strategist attacks him, asking for clemency to extend.

Falangist: “With the crest in my hands and the Dorus on my chin from the ground, I said; every arrangement I tried on the double edge of my sword bruised it. The upper sheet Sansevieria nominated me towards a Hebraic past and a medieval future ..., it was the Sword of Saint George, notifying that my family in Kalidona was under a paradoxical state, given to my two older children who were summoned to the service of the military. "The second lower edge of my Xiphos, the Sansevieria, betrayed me vile before the prosopopeia when I entered with discouragement to support them ..., the sclerosis of my soul continues to explode ..., surpassing and driving my wife into easily disposable splinters. I know that my descendants were buried under the effect of a mortal reunion in the catharsis of Pompeii; the becoming of Saint George made it clear! All will emigrate and flee after being devastated, and the inopportune comrades manage to return when they reintegrate in the festival of Holy Mary in Athens, the Holy Patroness consoled me and prepared my resistance of such bad money, so that one day I would drop my seeds in cultures of peasant archangels with sacred devotional fruits. I sighed and moaned rubbing myself in my animals! My empty eyes day and night were mesmerized as they became ethereally magnetized. They did it together with me, with the singularity of not affecting me ..., they went through nearby streams to sob so as not to see them demagnetized by certain fatalistic and consummatory effects”

Etrestles moved by the tribulations of the Infant of the Phalanx, he bowed imposing nonexistence, after her words implied the exhortation to Hera for her benevolence, prohibiting and parasitizing him to be able to reside with her. Thus they would be immune to progressive lives under the influence of sharp primary and secondary stews in the arms of the Falange. Hera's eyes shone when the Falangist's soul entered her, they were not vanities, but the advent of the vanistory in her pretense towards the Acropolis, taking him to her.

The Sibyl Tiburtina supports him, gathering him in her arms, saying: “you will receive the heat that will imprison you in the house of the high priest, a scene that will be represented in Procoro on the corresponding neutral folio. Events and expletives were from the past; they no longer targeted or abused him. The Armas Christi again swirled with the Souls of Trouvere in the last irascible recesses of the Eolonimi winds in the holistic of all the winds that named Vernarth. "Your children did not live again, the military Macedonian heard", the physical resurrection of the unconverted takes place after the tree of Mars, when they liberate the innocent fallen in the versicular belief that segments the ray with its half, where no minute will be able to get it right. The passages of the wind tunnel are the wasteland that dies revived by the almocaffre, cutting fibrils overflowing with vitality from on high, to overflow it downwards for those who still await astonishing miracles, walking alongside the living with hypocoristic trifles reborn in the same blood that it was spilled. Every famous person walks with pennants that rise from his own grave, cutting smaller capillaries in the impetuous rise of his pale cheeks, where the Greco-Western scepter will be the self-control of whoever escapes free and resolute from the tree of Mars. Now you will lie next to your children and you will be between the hazelnuts and Eolonimis doing the revival of Tagmati or order of succession of the Polis as an elite unit, tribulating the final sections of the Ultramundis straight, by tightening the glorified 103 meters”

Etréstles during the millennial of Satagenesis and Deidagenesis, together with the Heosphoros and the Uomo di Valplacci, prostrated Lucifer before Etréstles (Koumeterium Messolonghi, Ch. 45 - Palibrio USA), ebbing and emulating the Peloponnesian wars, this being a stronghold of the general of the Athenian fleet in western Greece. The Mentor Fleet was led by Admiral Phormio, who defeated all the Lacedaemonians on Naupacto. When they approached the province of Nafpaktia, of the Nome of Aitoloakarnania, confined they followed the undivided and weightless musks scattered, disintegrating immortal souls with the impairment of the exhaled breath that was extinguished in their offering. This is how he could provoke some aversion so as not to be condemned to the Hadic underworld. The castes of gods and demi-gods, with Sansevierias in green leaves and clover, were chained towards freedom from the raging gases of Xenon and Lithium. Sneaking through drains and spaces where no sword or spear crossed the atmosphere of Gaugamela Macedonian. Only Vernarth there hadic, will have to be channeled through the unscathed pavilions of the immaculate back room with heroic lineage. No undulating or flagrant blade will slice sanctified flesh acquired in said sessions in the handcuffs of the Bumodos with the drugs and the potions of Medea.
Codex X - Ultramundis Lepanto
D S Caillte Dec 2010
It may seem peculiar indeed
To have not paid homage
To this Nightguard of Poetry
But claim me for society's victim
For upon gazing at her ether-omniscient--
White curves encase the infertile desert
As, if you'll recall, her ancient patroness
Her consorts are of far greater interest
(A weak word hiding unspoken depth)
Unique in their millions
And, I find, quite indescribable
Except appropriate to represent that mystery
(It resides among the ugly, fragrant shelves)
Unworded but for breezes and shadows and eternity-swirls
Her mysteries were long drained from that pale, gaping face
And of no great interest.
And somehow I am writing.
Lauren Morris Jul 2017
Beneath your six foot eight frame
I spy a boy standing on a stool
in a suburban front yard
while his father whips him from behind
for the neighborhood kids to delight in
that proud display of punishment.

I hope there were oak leaves rustling above your head, drowning out the laughter.
I hope there was a strong wind blowing hair back onto their faces, covering their grins.
I understand that noises make homes in our brains forever,
may some beautiful sound find you and provide you new shelter as
I try to forgive the way you introduced me to pain.
I laid on the floor and you kicked it into my stomach.

You couldn't have known
that when you winced at my shape and
declared me unloveable,
you were declaring me a patroness saint
of boys trapped inside of men.
Boys on stools in bars,
boys who fall asleep underneath plastic stars with books on their chests,
dreaming of being better
and never following through.
renseksderf Jun 2022
tragic queen Elyssa, foundress
of Carthage. Her brother, Pygmalion
slew her husband, the chief priest
Acharbas and in the uproar fled
with Tyrian nobles, bearing gold 
on a fleet of Phoenician ships.

Then on Mauritanian coastline
she bought some land to build 
a new city-state, from the vantage
of Byrsa on which her citadel stands
'circumfenced' by strips of ox-hide
strung along the perimeter of the hill

The Berber chieftain rather stingily
offered as much land as an ox-hide
could cover and later on sought her 
hand in marriage as the city grew
in wealth and regional importance
but she threw herself into flames

of a priestly funeral pyre to Tanit,
in self-immolation for the dead
god of vegetation, Adonis-Eshmun;
Dido, as she was known, hence was
elevated to goddess and patroness
of that great Punic realm of Carthage

— The End —