| 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-conchèd ear: | |
| Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see | 5 |
| 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 | 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; | 15 |
| 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: | 20 |
| 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! | 25 |
| 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. | 35 |
| |
| 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 | 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; | 45 |
| Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet | |
| From swingèd 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 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; | 55 |
| 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, | 65 |
| A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, | |
| To let the warm Love in! | |
