Ode to Psyche.

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 awaken’d eyes? I wander’d 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 roof 10 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 embraced, and their pinions too; Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu, As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber, And ready still past kisses to outnumber At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: 20 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 hast none, Nor altar heap’d with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan 30 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 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 retir’d 40 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 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 50 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 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, 60 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!

FANCY.

Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind’s cage-door, She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Summer’s joys are spoilt by use, 10 And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming; Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too, Blushing through the mist and dew, Cloys with tasting: What do then? Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, Spirit of a winter’s night; When the soundless earth is muffled, And the caked snow is shuffled 20 From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon; When the Night doth meet the Noon In a dark conspiracy To banish Even from her sky. Sit thee there, and send abroad, With a mind self-overaw’d, Fancy, high-commission’d:--send her! She has vassals to attend her: She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth hath lost; 30 She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather; All the buds and bells of May, From dewy sward or thorny spray All the heaped Autumn’s wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth: She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; 40 Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn: And, in the same moment--hark! ‘Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold; White-plum’d lilies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; 50 Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; And every leaf, and every flower Pearled with the self-same shower. Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep Meagre from its celled sleep; And the snake all winter-thin Cast on sunny bank its skin; Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, 60 When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest Quiet on her mossy nest; Then the hurry and alarm When the bee-hive casts its swarm; Acorns ripe down-pattering, While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; Every thing is spoilt by use: Where’s the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid 70 Whose lip mature is ever new? Where’s the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where’s the face One would meet in every place? Where’s the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind: 80 Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter, Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe’s, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh Of the Fancy’s silken leash; 90 Quickly break her prison-string And such joys as these she’ll bring.-- Let the winged Fancy roam Pleasure never is at home.

ODE.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wond’rous, And the parle of voices thund’rous; With the whisper of heaven’s trees And one another, in soft ease 10 Seated on Elysian lawns Brows’d by none but Dian’s fawns Underneath large blue-bells tented, Where the daisies are rose-scented, And the rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not; Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth; Philosophic numbers smooth; 20 Tales and golden histories Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber’d, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; 30 Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new! 40

LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host’s Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood 10 Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day Mine host’s sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer’s old quill To a sheepskin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old-sign Sipping beverage divine, 20 And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?