4
And then for comfort many an old love-crost
And doleful ditty would she gently sing,
Writ by sad poets of a lover lost,
Now sounding sweeter for her sorrowing:
Echo, sweet Echo, watching up on high,
Say hast thou seen to-day my love go by,
Or where thou sittest by thy mossy spring?
5
Or say ye nymphs, that from the crystal rills,
When ye have bathed your limbs from morn till eve,
Flying at midnight to the bare-topt hills,
Beneath the stars your mazy dances weave,
Say, my deserter whom ye well may know
By his small wings, his quiver, and his bow,
Say, have ye seen my love, whose loss I grieve?
6
Till climb'd one evening on a rocky steep
Above the plain of Cisamos, that lay,
Robb'd of its golden harvest, in the deep
Mountainous shadows of the dying day,
She saw a temple, whose tall columns fair
Recall'd her home; and 'O if thou be there,
My love,' she cried, 'fly not again away.'
7
Swiftly she ran, and entering by the door
She stood alone within an empty fane
Of great Demeter: and, behold, the floor
Was litter'd with thank-offerings of grain,
With wheat and barley-sheaves together heapt
In holy harvest-home of them that reapt
The goddess plenteous gifts upon the plain;
8
And on the tithe the tackle of the tithe
Thrown by in such confusion, as are laid
Upon the swath sickle, and hook, and scythe,
When midday drives the reapers to the shade.
And Psyche, since had come no priestess there
To trim the temple, in her pious care
Forgat herself, and lent her duteous aid.
9
She drew the offerings from the midst aside,
And piled the sheaves at every pillar's base;
And sweeping therebetween a passage wide,
Made clear of corn and chaff the temple space:
As countrymen who bring their wheat to mart,
Set out their show along the walls apart
By their allotted stations, each in place;
10
Thus she, and felt no weariness,—such strength
Hath duty to support our feeble frame,—
Till all was set in order, and at length
Up to the threshold of the shrine she came:
When lo! before her face with friendly smile,
Tall as a pillar of the peristyle,
The goddess stood reveal'd, and call'd her name.
11
'Unhappy Psyche,' said she, 'know'st thou not
How Aphrodite to thy hurt is sworn?
And thou, thy peril and her wrath forgot,
Spendest thy thought my temple to adorn.
Take better heed!'—And Psyche, at the voice
Even of so little comfort, gan rejoice,
And at her feet pour'd out this prayer forlorn.