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Ode: Ode to Psyche



Ode to Psyche by John Keats

(I)
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
  Of leaves and trembled blossoms,where there ran
     A brooklet, scarce espied :

 (II)
’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 !

 (III)
O latest born and loveliest vision far
     Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy !
Fairer than PhÅ“be’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 ;
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.

 (IV)
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
     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.

(V)
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
     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 zephrs, 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,
     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 ! 


Summary of Ode to Psyche


The speaker starts the poem with an address to the goddess Psyche, requesting her to hear his words, and asking that she must forgive him because he is about to sing her secrets. He says that while moving in the forest one day, he saw two fair creatures lying side by side in the grass, beneath a roof made of leaves, surrounded by flowers. They embrace one another with both their arms and wings, and though their lips did not touch, but they were close to one another. The speaker says he knew the winged boy, but asks who the girl was. He answers his own question and tells that She was Psyche.

Next, he calls Psyche again, describing her as the youngest and most beautiful of all the Olympian gods and goddesses. He believes this, he says, despite the fact that, unlike other god and goddesses, Psyche has not even a single place of worship. She has no temples, no altars, no singers to sing for her, and so on. Next, he says that all this has happened because she has arrived late. She has come into the world very late. But he says that even in this time, he would like to pay homage to Psyche and will become her singer, her music, and her oracle. He continues with these declarations, saying he will become Psyche’s priest and build her a temple on a place where no one has ever walked in his own mind, a region surrounded by thought that resemble the beauty of nature or imagination. He promises Psyche by saying that the window of her new home will be left open at night, so that her winged boy and her Lover can come in at every night to meet her.



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