Ode to Psyche
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Ode to Psyche is a poem by John Keats.
John Keats (1795-1821) http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/psyche.html
Ode to Psyche
1 O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
2 By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
3 And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
4 Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
5 Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
6 The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
7 I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
8 And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
9 Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
10 In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
11 Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
12 A brooklet, scarce espied:
13 Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
14 Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
15 They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass;
16 Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
17 Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
18 As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
19 And ready still past kisses to outnumber
20 At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
21 The winged boy I knew;
22 But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
23 His Psyche true!
24 O latest born and loveliest vision far
25 Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
26 Fairer than Ph{oe}be's sapphire-region'd star,
27 Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
28 Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
29 Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
30 Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan
31 Upon the midnight hours;
32 No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
33 From chain-swung censer teeming;
34 No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
35 Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
36 O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
37 Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
38 When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
39 Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
40 Yet even in these days so far retir'd
41 From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
42 Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
43 I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd.
44 So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
45 Upon the midnight hours;
46 Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
47 From swinged censer teeming;
48 Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
49 Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
50 Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
51 In some untrodden region of my mind,
52 Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
53 Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
54 Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
55 Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
56 And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
57 The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
58 And in the midst of this wide quietness
59 A rosy sanctuary will I dress
60 With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
61 With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
62 With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
63 Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:
64 And there shall be for thee all soft delight
65 That shadowy thought can win,
66 A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
67 To let the warm Love in!
