JOHN KEATS

626. OJe to Tsyche

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 dream'd 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 whispering 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 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 :

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 Upon the midnight hours ;

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