Ode to Psyche.
“1. Let not a sigh be breathed, or he is flown!
With tiptoe stealth she glides, and throbbing breast,
Towards the bed, like one who dares not own
Her purpose, and half shrinks, yet cannot rest
From her rash Essay: in one trembling hand
She bears a lamp, which sparkles on a sword;
In the dim light she seems a wandering dream
Of loveliness: ’tis Psyche and her Lord,
Her yet unseen, who slumbers like a beam
Of moonlight, vanishing as soon as scann’d!
“2. One Moment, and all bliss hath fled her heart,
Like windstole odours from the rosebud’s cell,
Or as the earthdashed dewdrop which no art
Can e’er replace: alas! we learn fullwell
How beautiful the Past when it is o’er,
But with scal’d eyes we hurry to the brink,
Blind as the waterfall: oh, stay thy feet,
Thou rash one, be content to know no more
Of bliss than thy heart teaches thee, nor think
The sensual eye can grasp a form more sweet—
“3. Than that which for itself the soul should chuse
For higher adoration; but in vain!
Onward she moves, and as the lamp’s faint hues
Flicker around, her charmed eyeballs strain,
For there he lies in undreamt loveliness!
Softly she steals towards him, and bends o’er
His slumberlidded eyes, as a lily droops
Faint o’er a folded rose: one caress
She would but dares not take, and as she stood,
An oildrop from the lamp fell burning sore!
“4. Thereat sleepfray’d, dreamlike the God takes Wing
And soars to his own skies, while Psyche strives
To clasp his foot, and fain thereon would cling,
But falls insensate;
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Psyche! thou shouldst have taken that high gift
Of Love as it was meant, that mystery
Did ask thy faith, the Gods do test our worth,
And ere they grant high boons our heart would sift!
“5. Hadst thou no divine Vision of thine own?
Didst thou not see the Object of thy Love
Clothed with a Beauty to dull clay unknown?
And could not that bright Image, far above
The Reach of sere Decay, content thy Thought?
Which with its glory would have wrapp’d thee round,
To the Gravesbrink, untouched by Age or Pain!
Alas! we mar what Fancy’s Womb has brought
Forth of most beautiful, and to the Bound
Of Sense reduce the Helen of the Brain!”
What a picture! Psyche, pale with love and fear, bending in the uncertain light, over her lord, with the rich flush of health and sleep and manhood on his cheek, “as a lily droops faint o’er a folded rose!” We remember nothing anywhere finer than this.