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Ode To PsycheOde To Psyche
Ode To Psyche
[See Psyche: From the painting by Alfred de Curzon in the Luxembourg Gallery,
Paris.]
O goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft - conched ear:
Surely I dream`d to - day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken`d eyes?
I wander`d in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp`ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
`Mid hush`d, cool - rooted flowers fragrant - eyed,
Blue, silver - white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm - breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch`d not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft - handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye - dawn of aurorean love:
The winged boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!
O latest - born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus` faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe`s sapphire - region`d star,
Or Vesper, amorous glow - worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heap`d with flowers;
Nor Virgin - choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain - swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale - mouth`d prophet dreaming.
O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swing`ed censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale - mouth`d prophet dreaming.
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark - cluster`d trees
Fledge the wild - ridged mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss - lain Dryads shall be lull`d to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath`d trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e`er could feign,
Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!
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