29
'O simple-hearted Psyche,' thus he spake,
And she upraised her piteous eyes and hands,
'O simple-hearted Psyche, for thy sake
I dared to break my mother's stern commands;
And gave thee godlike marriage in the place
Of vilest shame; and, not to hurt thy grace,
Spared thee my arrows, which no heart withstands.
30
'But thou, for doubt I was some evil beast,
Hast mock'd the warnings of my love, to spy
Upon my secret, which concern'd thee least,
Seeing that thy joy was never touch'd thereby.
By faithless prying thou hast work'd thy fall,
And, even as I foretold thee, losest all
For looking on thy happiness too nigh:
31
'Which loss may be thine ample punishment.
But to those fiends, by whom thou wert misled,
Go tell each one in turn that I have sent
This message, that I love her in thy stead;
And bid them by their love haste hither soon.'
Whereat he fled; and Psyche in a swoon
Fell back upon the marble floor as dead.
AUGUST
1
When from the lowest ebbing of her blood
The fluttering pulses thrill'd and swell'd again,
Her stricken heart recovering force to flood
With life the sunken conduits of her brain,
Then Psyche, where she had fallen, numb and cold
Arose, but scarce her quaking sense control'd,
Seeing the couch where she that night had lain.
2
The level sunbeams search'd the grassy ground
For diamond dewdrops. Ah! was this the place?
Where was the court, her home? she look'd around
And question'd with her memory for a space.
There was the cypress, there the well-known wood,
That wall'd the spot: 'twas here her palace stood,
As surely as 'twas vanish'd without trace.
3
Was all a dream? To think that all was dreamt
Were now the happier thought; but arguing o'er
That dream it was, she fell from her attempt,
Feeling the wifely burden that she bore.
Nay, true, 'twas true. She had had all and lost;
The joy, the reckless wrong, the heavy cost
Were hers, the dead end now, and woe in store.
4
What to be done? Fainting and shelterless
Upon the mountain it were death to bide:
And harbour knew she none, where her distress
Might comfort find, or love's dishonour hide;
Nor felt she any dread like that of home:
Yet forth she must, albeit to rove and roam
An outcast o'er the country far and wide.