With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led,
Slaughter’d before the sacred altars, bled:
Pygmalion off’ring, first approach’d the shrine,
And then with pray’rs implor’d the pow’rs divine:
“Almighty gods, if all we mortals want,
If all we can require, be yours to grant;
Make this fair statue mine,” he would have said,
But chang’d his words for shame; and only pray’d,
“Give me the likeness of my iv’ry maid.”
The golden goddess, present at the pray’r,