PSYCHE; OR, AN OLD POET'S LOVE.—
1847.
I.
O western Isle that gave her birth!
O Delos of a holier sea!
O casket of uncounted worth!
How dear thou art to Love and me!
Thy whispering woods, in some soft dell,
Now charmed, now broke the Infant's rest;
Thy vales the wild-flower cherished well,
Predestined for the Virgin's breast.
May airs salubrious, gusts of balm,
On all thy shores incumbent, blow
Thy billow from the glassy calm,
And fringe thy myrtles with sea-snow!
My Psyche's lips thy zephyrs breathe;
My Psyche's feet thy pastures tread:—
O Isle of isles, around me wreathe
Thine asphodels when I am dead.
II.
How blue were Ariadne's eyes,
When from the sea's horizon line,
At eve, she raised them on the skies!
My Psyche, bluer far are thine.
How pallid, snatched from falling flowers,
The cheek averse of Proserpine,
Unshadowed yet by Stygian bowers!
My Psyche, paler far is thine.
Yet thee no lover e'er forsook;
No tyrant urged with love unkind:
Thy joy the ungentle could not brook;
Thy light would strike the unworthy blind.
A golden flame invests thy tresses:
An azure flame invests thine eyes:
And well that wingless form expresses
Communion with relinquished skies.
Forbear, O breezes of the West,
To waft her to her native bourne;
For heavenly, by her feet impressed,
Becomes our ancient earth outworn!
On Psyche's life our beings hang:
In Psyche life and love are one:—
My Psyche glanced at me and sang,
‘Perhaps to-morrow I am gone!’
III.—PSYCHE'S BATH.
O stream beloved! O stream unknown!
In which my love has bathed,
Be still thy fount unvexed with floods
Thy marge by heats unscathed!
How oft her white hand tempted thine!
How oft, by fears delayed,
Ere yet her light had filled thy depth,
With thee her shadow played!
Thy purity encompassed hers;
Thy crystal cased my pearl;
Of founts, the fairest fount embraced
Of girls, the loveliest girl!
May still thy lilies round thee wave,
As shaken by a sigh!
Thy violets, blooming where she gazed,
Bloom first and latest die!
May better bards, when I am gone,
Like birds salute thy bower;
And each that sings thee grow in heart
A virgin from that hour!
IV.—PSYCHE'S STUDY.
The low sun smote the topmost rocks,
Ascending o'er the eastern sea:
Backward my Psyche waved her locks,
And held her book upon her knee.
No brake was near, no flower, no bird,
No music but the ocean wave,
That with complacent murmur stirred
The echoes of a neighbouring cave.
Absorbed my Psyche sat, her face
Reflecting Plato's sun-like soul,
And seemed in every word to trace
The pent-up spirit of the whole.
Absorbed she sat in breathless mood,
Unmoved as kneeler at a shrine,
Save one slight finger that pursued
The meaning on from line to line.
As some white flower in forest nook
Bends o'er its own face in a well,
So seemed the virgin in that book
Her soul, unread before, to spell.
Sudden, a crimson butterfly
On that illumined page alit:—
My Psyche flung the volume by,
And sister-like, gave chase to it!
V.
Nearer yet, by soft degrees,
Nearer nestling by my side,
Her arm she propped upon my knees;
Her head, ere long, its place supplied.
Mysteriously a child there lurked
Within that soaring spirit wild:
Mysteriously a woman worked
Imprisoned in that fearless child.
One thought before me, like a star,
Rolled onward ever, always on;
It called me to the fields afar,
In which triumphant palms are won.
The concourse of far years I heard
Applausive as a summer sea:—
My trance was broken: Psyche stirred;—
‘Is Psyche nothing then to thee?’
VI.
Ah, that a lightly-lifted hand
Should thus man's soul depress or raise,
And wield, as with a magic wand,
A spirit steeled in earlier days!
Ah, that a voice whose speech is song,
Whose pathos weeps, whose gladness smiles,
Should melt a heart unmoved so long,
And charm it to the Syren Isles!
Ah, that one presence, morn or eve,
Should fill deserted halls with light;
One breeze-like step, departing, leave
The noonday darker than the night!
Thy power is great: but Love and Youth
Conspire with thee. With thee they dwell:
From those kind eyes in tenderest ruth
On mine they look and say, ‘Farewell!’
VII.
Love! Love the avenger! Had I deemed
There lived such beauty, ere too late,
But once of Psyche had I dreamed,
How different had been my fate!
I heard of Virtue, and believed:
But till that glorious face I saw,
Her image in my soul conceived
Possessed me less with love than awe.
It was mine own infirmity:—
I heard, believed; but Faith was weak:
The Syren-Muse for ever nigh,
Forbade me heavenlier lights to seek.
Deposed I stand by power divine:
The robes of Song are changed for chains;
To love my Psyche; this is mine;
To love—not seek her—this remains.
VIII.—PSYCHE DRAWING.
Of mind all light, and tenderest-handed,
She sketched, untaught, an infant's face,
And as the ideal Thought expanded,
Stamped, line by line, a deepening grace.
Not pilotless her fancy dreamed,
Though borne through shoreless seas and air:
From native regions on her beamed
The archetypes of True and Fair.
As when the Spring with touches pure
Evolves some blossom, hour by hour,
So Psyche's Thought became mature;
So Psyche nursed her human flower.
The billowy locks, the look intense,
The eyes so piercing, sweet, and wild!—
I cried, inspired by sudden sense,
‘Thus Psyche looked, an infant child!’
IX.—PSYCHE'S REMORSE.
A word unkind, yet scarce unkind,
Was sweetened by so soft a smile,
It lingered long in heart and mind,
Yet hardly woke a pang the while.
At night she dreamed that I was dead;
And wished to touch, yet feared to stir,
The heavy hands beside me laid,
Incapable of love and her.
We met at morning: still her breast
Rose gently with a mournful wave:
And of the flowers thereon, the best
She gave; and kissed before she gave.
X.—PSYCHE SINGING.
Between the green hill and the cloud
The skylark loosed his silver chain
Of rapturous music, clear and loud—
My Psyche answered back the strain!
A glory rushed along the sky;
She sang, and all dark things grew plain;
Hope, starlike, shone; and Memory
Flashed like a cypress gemmed with rain.
Once more the skylark recommenced;
Once more from heaven his challenge rang:
Again with him my Psyche fenced;
At last the twain commingled sang.
Then first I learned the skylark's lore;
Then first the words he sang I knew:
My soul with rapture flooded o'er
As breeze-borne gossamer with dew.
XI.
Wert thou a child, O gladness then
Thy hand in mine to roam the woods,
And teach that child in vale or glen
To scale the rocks, nor fear the floods!
What joy the page of ancient lore
To turn: her dawn of thought to watch:
And from her kindling eyes once more
The sunrise of old times to catch!
Wert thou an infant, then my arms
Might lift thee in the light; and I
The captive were of infant charms:—
From such at least no need to fly!
Wert thou my sister, Love would swear
To own thenceforth no haughtier name:
Whatever form that Soul might wear,
The spell would be to me the same.
It is not love that rules my heart,
Nor aught by mortals named or known:
I know but this;—when near thou art,
I live. I die when thou art gone.
XII.
As when—deep chaunts abruptly stayed—
The Thoughts that, music-born, advanced
In tides of puissance, music-swayed
And waves that in the glory danced,
Contract, subside, and leave at last,
Where late the abounding floods were spread,
A vale of darkness, grim and vast,
A buried river's rocky bed;
Thus—when thou goest—my heart, my life
Descend to dim sepulchral caves;
My world, but late with rapture rife,
Becomes a world of rocks and graves.
Come back! From mountain-cells afar,
My soul's strong river shall return:
Come back! Again the Morning Star
Shall shine against the exhaustless urn.
XIII.
My Psyche laid her silken hand
Upon my silver head,
And said, ‘To thee shall I remand
The light of seasons fled?’
The child bent o'er me as she spake;
And, leaning yet more near,
A tress that kissed me for Love's sake,
Removed from me a tear.
Psyche, not so! lest life should grow
Near thee too deeply sweet;
And I who censure Death as slow
Should fear her far-off feet.
Eternal sweetness, love, and truth,
Are in thy face enshrined;
The breathing soul of endless youth
On wafts thee like a wind.
Those eyes, where'er they chance to gaze,
Might wake to songs the dumb!
Breathe thou upon my blighted bays—
Rose-odoured they become!
Yet go, and cheer a happier throng:
For Death, a spouse dark-eyed,
On me her eyes hath levelled long,
And calls me to her side.
O'er yon not distant coast, even now,
What shape ascends? A Tomb.
Farewell, my Psyche!—why shouldst thou
Be shadowed by its gloom?
XIV.
‘Can Love be just? can Hope be wise?
Can Youth renew his honours dead?’—
On me my Psyche turned her eyes;
And all my great resolves were fled.
Psyche, I said, when thou art nigh
Transpicuous grow the mists of years:
I cannot ever wholly die
If on my grave should drop thy tears.
Nor thine a part in mortal hours:
Thy flower nor autumn knows, nor May:
Thou bendest from sidereal bowers
A dateless glory, fresh for aye!
Though I be nothing, yet the best
To thee no gift of price could give:—
Fall then, in radiance, on my breast,
And in thy blessing bid me live!
XV.
Pure lip coralline, slightly stirred;
Thus stir; but speak not! Love can see
On you the syllables unheard
Which are his only melody.
Pure, drooping lids; dark lashes wet
With that unhoped-for, trembling tear;
Thus droop; thus meet; nor give me yet
The eyes that I desire, yet fear.
Hands lightly clasped on meekest knee;
All-beauteous head, as by a spell
Bent forward; loveliest form, to me
A lovely Soul made visible;—
Speak not! move not! More tender grows
The heart, long musing. Night may plead,
Perhaps, my part; and, at its close,
The morning bring me light indeed.
XVI.
‘Such beauty was not born to die!’
That thought above my fancy kept
Hovering like moonbeams tremulously;
And as its lustre waned, I slept.
Deep Love kept vigil. Where she sate
Methought I sought her. Ah the change!
Youth freezes at the frown of Fate;
And Time defied will have revenge.
The summer sunshine of her head
Had changed to moonlight tresses grey:
O'er all her countenance was spread
The twilight of a winter's day.
Dim as a misty tree ere morn,
Sad as a tide-deserted strand,
She sate, with roseless lip forlorn:—
I knelt, and, reverent, kissed her hand.
I loved her. Whom I loved of yore,
A shape all lustrous from the skies,
I loved that hour, and loved far more,
So sweet in this unjust disguise.
A human tenderness, a love,
More deep than loves of prosperous years,
Through all my spirit rose and strove,
And, cloud-like, o'er her sank in tears.
XVII.
She leaves us! Many a gentler breast
Will mourn our common loss like me:
The babe her hand, her voice caressed,
The lamb that couched beside her knee.
The touch thou lovest—the robe's far gleam—
Thou shalt not find, thou dark-eyed fawn!
Thy light is lost, exultant stream:
Dim woods, your sweetness is withdrawn.
Descend dark heavens, and flood with rain
Their crimson roofs; their silence rout:
Their vapour-laden branches strain;
And force the smothered sadness out!
That so the ascended moon, when breaks
The cloud, may light once more a scene
Fair as some cheek that suffering makes
Only more tearfully serene:
That so the vale she loved may look
Calm as some cloister roofed with snows,
Wherein, unseen, in shadowy nook,
A buried Vestal finds repose.
XVIII.
Ah! Grief had but begun to grieve
When thus I trifled with my sighs:
Who brings what Psyche brought must leave
The loss no song can harmonise.
She brought me back the buried years;
And glorious in her light they shone:
Once more their sun is set; and tears
Deface their care-worn aspect wan.
Old joys, old sorrows,—ghosts unlaid,—
In every dirge-like breeze go by:
Loved phantoms haunt the unwholesome shade:
Ah then revived they but to die?
They die, like music: like a tide
They ebb through darkness far away:
Till, meeting Lethè, side by side
The rivers roll that love not day.
XIX.
Cold Fount, I sing thee not, although
Thy wave has cooled abandoned hands:
Sing thou, cold-lipped, in whispers low,
The praises of thy shells and sands.
Dark cave that, lenient, in the woods
Didst breathe thy darkness o'er my day,
I sing thee not, though sullen moods
Relaxed in thee, and waned away.
The Shepherd youth whose love is fled
Lies outcast in some lonely place:
But o'er his eyes her veil is spread,
And airy kisses touch his face.
Beneath that veil his eyes may stream;
Beneath that heaven his heart may heave:
The day goes by him like a dream,
And comfort comes to him at eve.
He sings: her name makes sweet his strains:
Such solace suits a stripling's years—
For age what healing herb remains?
Nor love, nor hope, nor song, nor tears.
XX.
What art thou? If thou liv'st, I know
That thou art good, and true, and fair:
But Love, the Avenger, whispers low
At times, ‘Thy passion paints the air!
‘Love's fair, true world thou deem'dst at first
Was only fair through Fancy's gleam:—
At last thou lov'st, with doom reversed,
As beauteous Truth a Poet's dream.
‘Too late thy Fancy, tired of dust,
Unsphered a Spirit. Self-enthralled,
It worships now, because it must,
An Idol pride at first installed.
‘Or else the pathos of the Past
Above thy Present moves in power;
And o'er thy sultry day hath cast
This dewdrop from its matin hour.
‘In her thou lov'st the times gone by;
In her the joys possessed—not missed:—
It was not Hope, but Memory
Thy dreaming lids that bent and kissed.
‘In her the dawning lawns forlorn
Thou lov'st; the lights along them flung
The witcheries of the wakening morn;
The echo of its latest song.
‘Thou tread'st once more Castalia's brink:—
Far down, thy youth finds rest from trouble:
And thou, that saw'st it slowly sink,
Dost watch its latest-breaking bubble.’
XXI.—PSYCHE'S BRIDAL SONG.
When now had come the marriage day,
The church was decked, and nigh the hour,
My Psyche said, ‘One other lay,
To bless the bride, and bless the bower!’
My Psyche's eyes in gladness swim;
His gladness, doubled in her breast:
All that she is, and has, to him
She gives, not doubting; and is blest.
She walks on air; she lifts her brow
Like one inspired:—Such light as flushes
The Alps at morn, upon its snow
Is stayed, in glory, not in blushes.
Her world of dream has ta'en its flight!
The shadow passed: the substance came:
A Soul that long had fed on light
Love touched, and kindled into flame.
Ah heart of hearts! ah life of life!
My Psyche to another given!—
The vow that changes Maid to Wife
Is pledged to-day, and heard in Heaven!
And must she change? And must that wing
So soaring, leave its native sky?
Then, fairest, purest, o'er thee fling
The lightest-robed mortality!
Ah! now her other life begins;
The soft submission, humble pride;
The smile tear-dipp'd; the loss that wins;
The life transfused and multiplied!
Even now, large heart, thy wish is this:—
That from that altar love might stream,
And bathe a sorrowing world in bliss!
That wish shall end not like a dream.
Good works, good will, shall round her spread;
The desert blossom, and the waste:
The poor man's prayer her golden head
Shall crown with lustres ne'er displaced.
Go now, my Psyche: meet the throngs
That sprinkle flowers and banners wave;—
Take, Psyche, take, my last of songs;
And keep a garland for a grave.
