Pagan prayer

In Competition No. 2470 you were invited to offer a votive poem to a pre-Christian deity.

Venus, take my votive glass:
Since I am not what I was,
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.

Matthew Prior’s 18th-century prayer by a fading beauty is hard to beat, but Ezra Pound comes close with his unexpectedly charming poem, ‘The Lake Isle’ (is he having a go at Yeats?), which opens:

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of
thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little
tobacco-shop…

The Golden Calf rewards its worshippers as follows: £25 each to five of the prizewinners printed below, and £30 to Virginia Price Evans, who prays as if she really means it.

Ishtar of Assyria,
Give me vengeance on that exiled band
Of Hebrews and send them back to their land —
They’re sowing hysteria.

My man has left me —
It’s all their fault, those wretched Jews,
For spreading their poison, the evil news
Of a god who’s holy.

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Ricky Roffey

Douglas Murray has been blacklisted in Berlin

Brainwashed he’s been —
They’ve persuaded him our adultery’s wrong
And their god (who’s invisible!) will help him be
strong.
So he’s left the scene.

Let me outlive him —
Give him a cancer, a bloody flux
And a painful death. His morality sucks!
I’ll never forgive him!
Virginia Price Evans

Bast, best of Nile divinities,
Hear thou my pleas!
Keep thou my cat, Ptib-mna-ptah,
Quite free of fleas.

Curb thou his habit, too, most blest
Bast-feline-head,
Of bringing offerings of mice
Not fully dead.

And make him leave, almighty Bast,
Birds on the wing,
And not upon my doorstep, mauled
But fluttering.

And when I reach the Afterworld
And judgment’s passed,
Please let Ptibbi attend me there.
Thank you, O Bast!
Brian Murdoch

Astarte, queen of heaven, hear and bless
This Fräulein, many moons your votaress.
You’ve measured out a hundred months for me
Since first I sensed your periodicity:
How easily could I prognosticate
Your visitation! You were never late.
But