Of fuel, bramble-sprays or fern or furze

Or pear-boughs dried with swinging in the wind:

And let the kindled wild-wood burn those snakes

At midnight, when they looked to slay thy babe.

And let at dawn some handmaid gather up

The ashes of the fire, and diligently

Convey and cast each remnant o'er the stream

Faced by clov'n rocks, our boundary: then return

Nor look behind. And purify your home

First with sheer sulphur, rain upon it then,