In her hand the little lamp, and
Mighty passion in her breast,
Psyche creepeth to the couch where
Her dear sleeper takes his rest.
How she blushes, how she trembles,
When his beauty she descries!
He, the God of love, unveil’d thus,
Soon awakes and quickly flies.
Eighteen hundred years’ repentance!
And the poor thing nearly died!
Psyche fasts and whips herself still,
For she Amor naked spied.
16. THE UNKNOWN ONE.
Every day I have a meeting
With my golden-tressèd beauty
In the Tuileries’ fair garden
Underneath the chesnuts’ shadow.
Every day she goes to walk there
With two old and ugly women—
Are they aunts? or else two soldiers
Muffled up in women’s garments?
Overawed by the mustachios
Of her masculine attendants,
And still farther overawed too
By the feelings in my bosom,
I ne’er ventured e’en one sighing
Word to whisper as I pass’d her,
And with looks I scarcely ventured
Ever to proclaim my passion.
For the first time I to-day have
Learnt her name. Her name is Laura,
Like the Provençal fair maiden
Whom the famous poet loved so.
Laura is her name! I’ve gone now
Just as far as Master Petrarch,
Who the fair one celebrated
In canzonas and in sonnets.