ODE TO PSYCHE
by: John Keats (1795-1821)
- GODDESS!
hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
- By sweet enforcement and remembrances dear,
- And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
- Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:
- Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see
- The wingèd Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
- I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
- And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
- Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
- In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
- Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
- A brooklet, scarce espied:
- 'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed,
- Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
- They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
- Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;
- Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
- As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
- And ready still past kisses to outnumber
- At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
- The wingèd 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 hast 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 censor teeming;
- No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
- Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
-
- O brightest! 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 retired
- From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
- Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
- I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
- So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
- Upon the midnight hours;
- Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
- From swingèd censor 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 branchèd 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-ridgèd mountains steep by steep;
- And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
- The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd 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 bread 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!
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POEMS BY JOHN KEATS |
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