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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