Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II

VII The Smoke upon Your Altar Dies

(To Whom It May Concern.)

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
  The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
  Has flown away.
What profit, then, to sing or slay
  The sacrifice from day to day?

“We know the Shrine is void,” they said,
  “The Goddess flown—
Yet wreaths are on the Altar laid—
  The Altar-Stone
Is black with fumes of sacrifice,
  Albeit She has fled our eyes.

“For it may be, if still we sing
  And tend the Shrine,
Some Deity on wandering wing
  May there incline;
And, finding all in order meet,
  Stay while we worship at Her feet.”