Sacred Groves and their Denizens.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Folkard, Richard
With rage, and with his eyes his weapon, turn’d;
Take the reward (says he) of pious dread;—
Then with a blow lopp’d off his parted head.
No longer check’d, the wretch his crime pursued,
Doubled his strokes, and sacrilege renew’d;
When from the groaning trunk a voice was heard,—
‘A Dryad I,’ by Ceres’ love preferred,
Within the circle of this clasping rind
Coeval grew, and now in ruin join’d;
But instant vengeance shall thy sin pursue,
And death is cheered with this prophetic view.”
Garth’s Ovid.