O Goddess hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung Even into thine own soft-conched ear! Surely I dreamt to-day; or did I see The winged Psyche, with awaked eyes? I wandered in a forest thoughtlessly, And on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair Creatures couched side by side In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring fan Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A Brooklet scarce espied 'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed, Blue, freckle pink, and budded Syrian They lay, calm-breathing on the bedded grass; Their arms embraced and their pinions too; Their lips touch'd not, but had not bid adieu, As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber, And ready still past kisses to outnumber At tender dawn of aurorian love. The winged boy I knew: But who wast thou O happy happy dove? His Psyche true? O latest born, and loveliest vision far Of all Olympus' faded Hierarchy! Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star, Or Vesper amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these though Temple thou hadst none, Nor Altar heap'd with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe no incense sweet From chain-swung Censer teeming-- No shrine, no grove, no Oracle, no heat Of pale mouth'd Prophet dreaming! O Bloomiest! though too late for antique vows; Too, too late for the fond believing Lyre, When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the Air, the water and the fire; Yet even in these days so far retir'd From happy Pieties, thy lucent fans, Fluttering among the faint Olympians, I see, and sing by my own eyes inspired. O let me be thy Choir and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged Censer teeming; Thy Shrine, thy Grove, thy Oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouth'd Prophet dreaming! Yes, I will be thy Priest and build a fane In some untrodden region of my Mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind. Far, far around shall those dark cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by Zephyrs streams and birds and bees The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep. And in the midst of this wide-quietness A rosy Sanctuary will I dress With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain; With buds and bells and stars without a name; With all the gardener-fancy e'er could feign, Who breeding flowers will never breed the same-- And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win; A bright torch and a casement ope at night To let the warm Love in. Here endethe ye Ode to Psyche. Incipit altera Sonneta