Explore "The Avengers" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Who grafted quince on Western may, / Sharon's mild rose on Northern briar? / In loathing since that Gospel day / The two saps flame, the tree's on fire.
The briar-rose weeps for injured right, / May sprouts up red to choke the quince. / With angry throb of equal spite / Our wood leaps maddened ever since.
Then mistletoe, of gods not least, / Kindler of warfare since the Flood, / Against green things of South and East / Voices the vengeance of our blood.
Crusading ivy Southward breaks / And sucks your lordly palms upon, / Our island oak the water takes / To outrage cedared Lebanon.
Our slender ash-twigs feathered fly / Against your vines; bold buttercup / Pours down his legions; malt of rye / Inflames and burns your lentils up.
For bloom of quince yet caps the may, / The briar is held by Sharon's rose, / Monsters of thought through earth we stray, / And how remission comes, God knows.