O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers1, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even unto thine own soft-conched ear2:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see3
The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly4,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof 5
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied6:
'Mid hush'd cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian7,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions8 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 aurorean9 love:
?The winged boy10 I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove11?
His Psyche true!
O latest born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star12,
Or Vesper13, 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 censer14 teeming;
No shrine, no globe, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouthed prophet15 dreaming.
O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyte16,
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 fans17,
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 fane18
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts19, 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 zephyrs20, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads21 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 feign22,
Who breeding glowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought23 can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night24,
?
To let the warm Love in!25 |