How
ingenious is poverty, and what strange arts will hunger teach? The
priestess seem'd so great a lover of this sort of life, that her
humour appear'd in every thing about her, and her hut might be truly
term'd, sacred to poverty.
Here shines no glittering ivory set with gold,
No marble covers the deluded mold,
By its own wealth deluded; but the shrine
With simple natural ornaments does shine.
Round Cere's bower, but homely willows grow,
Earthen are all the sacred bowls they know.
Osier the dish, sacred to use divine:
Both course and stain'd, the jug that holds the wine.
Mud mixt with straw, make a defending fort,
The temple's brazen studs, are knobs of dirt.
With rush and reed, is thatcht the hut it self,
Where, besides what is on a smoaky shelf,
Ripe service-berries into garlands bound,
And savory-bunches with dry'd grapes are found.
Such a low cottage Hecale confin'd,
Low was her cottage, but sublime her mind.
Her bounteous heart, a grateful praise shall crown,
And muses make immortal her renown.
After which, she tasted of the flesh, and hanging the rest, old as her
self, on the hook again; the rotten stool on which she was mounted
breaking, threw her into the fire, her fall spilt the kettle, and what
it held put out the fire; she burnt her elbow, and all her face was
hid with the ashes that her fall had rais'd.
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