Explore "An Idyll of Old Age" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Two gods once visited a hermit couple, / Philemon and his Baucis, old books tell; / They sampled elder-wine and called it nectar, / Though nectar is the tastier drink by far. / They made ambrosia of pot-herb and lentil, / They ate pease-porridge even, with a will. / Why, and so forth. / But that night in the spare bedroom / Where they lay shivering in the musty gloom, / Hermes and Zeus overheard conversation, / Behind the intervening wall, drag on / In thoughtful snatches through the night. They idly / Listened, and first they heard Philemon sigh: --
_Phi._ "Since two souls meet and merge at time of marriage, / Conforming to one stature and one age, / An honest token each with each exchanging / Of Only Love unbroken as a ring -- / What signified my boyhood's ideal friendship / That stared its ecstasy at eye and lip, / But dared not touch because love seemed too holy / For flesh with flesh in real embrace to lie?"