Which from the mountain shoulder o’er the plain
Led to the city of their sire’s abode,
Found they their tongues, though full of high disdain
Their hearts were, but kept silence, till the strength
Of pride and envious hatred burst at length
In voice, and thus the elder gan complain:
13
‘Cruel and unjust fortune! that of three
Sisters, whose being from one fountain well’d,
Exalts the last so high from her degree,
And leaves the first to be so far excel’d.
My husband is a poor and niggard churl
To him, whoe’er he be, that loves the girl.
Oh! in what godlike state her house is held!’
14
‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘to a gouty loon
Am I not wedded? Lo! thy hurt is mine:
But never call me woman more, if soon
I cannot lure her from her height divine.
Nay, she shall need her cunning wit to save
The wealth of which so grudgingly she gave;
Wherefore thy hand and heart with me combine.
15
‘She but received us out of pride, to show
Her state, well deeming that her happiness
Was little worth while there was none to know;
So is our lot uninjured if none guess.
Reveal we nothing therefore, but the while
Together scheme this wanton to beguile,
And bring her boasting godhead to distress.’
16
So fresh disordering their dress and hair,
With loud lament they to their sire return,
Telling they found not Psyche anywhere,
And of her sure mischance could nothing learn:
And with that lie the wounded man they slew,
Hiding the saving truth which well they knew;
Nor did his piteous grief their heart concern.
17
Meanwhile her unknown lover did not cease
To warn poor Psyche how her sisters plan’d
To undermine her love and joy and peace;
And urged how well she might their wiles withstand,
By keeping them from her delight aloof:
For better is security than proof,
And malice held afar than near at hand.
18
‘And, dearest wife,’ he said, ‘since ’tis not long
Ere one will come to share thy secrecy,
And be thy babe and mine; let nothing wrong
The happy months of thy maternity.
If thou keep trust, then shalt thou see thy child
A god; but if to pry thou be beguiled,
The lot of both is death and misery.’
19
Then Psyche’s simple heart was fill’d with joy,
And counting to herself the months and days,
Look’d for the time, when she should bear a boy
To be her growing stay and godlike praise.
And ‘O be sure,’ she said, ‘be sure, my pride
Having so rich a promise cannot slide,
Even if my love coud fail which thee obeys.’
20
And so most happily her life went by,
In thoughts of love dear to her new estate;
Until at length the evil day drew nigh,
When now her sisters, joined in jealous hate,
Set forth again, and plotted by the way
How they might best allure her to betray
Her secret; with what lie their angle bait.
21
That night her husband spake to her, and said
‘Psyche, thy sisters come: and when they climb
The peak they will not tarry to be sped
Down by the Zephyr, as that other time,
But winging to the wind will cast themselves
Out in the air, and on the rocky shelves
Be dasht, and pay the penalty of crime.
22
‘So let it be, and so shall we be saved.’
Which meditated vengeance of his fear
When Psyche heard, now for their life she craved,
Whose mere distress erewhile had toucht her near.
Around her lover’s neck her arms she threw,
And pleaded for them by her faith so true,
Although they went on doom in judgment clear.
23
In terror of bloodguiltiness she now
Forgot all other danger; she adjured;
Or using playfulness deep sobs would plow
Her soft entreaties, not to be endured:
Till he at last was fain once more to grant
The service of the Zephyr, to enchant
That wicked couple from their fate assured.
24
So ere ’twas noon were noises at the door
Of knocking loud and voices high in glee;
Such as within that vale never before
Had been, and now seem’d most unmeet to be.
And Psyche blush’d, though being alone, and rose
To meet her sisters and herself unclose
The gate that made them of her palace free.
25
Fondly she kiss’d them, and with kindly cheer
Sought to amuse; and they with outward smile
O’ermask’d their hate, and called her sweet and dear,
Finding affection easy to beguile:
And all was smooth, until at last one said
‘Tell us, I pray, to whom ’tis thou art wed;
’Mong gods or men, what is his rank and style?
26
‘Thou canst not think to hide the truth from us,
Who knew thy peevish sorrows when a maid,
And see thee now so glad and rapturous,
As changed from what thou wert as light from shade;
Thy jewels, too, the palace of a king,
Nor least the serviceable spiriting,
By everything thy secret is betray’d:
27
‘And yet thou talkest of thy wondrous man
No more than if his face thou didst not know.’
At which incontinently she began,
Forgetful of her word a month ago,
Answering ‘A merchant rich, of middle age,
My husband is; and o’er his features sage
His temples are already touch’d with snow.
28
‘But ’gainst his wish since hither ye were brought
’Twere best depart.’ Then her accustom’d spell
Sped them upon the summit quick as thought;
And being alone her doing pleased her well:
So was she vext to find her love at night
More sad than ever, of her sisters’ spite
Speaking as one that coud the end foretell.
29
‘And ere long,’ said he, ‘they will spy again:
Let them be dash’d upon the rocks and die;
’Tis they must come to death or thou to pain,
To separation, Psyche, thou and I;
Nay, and our babe to ill. I therefore crave
Thou wilt not even once more these vipers save,
Nor to thy love his only boon deny.’
30
But Psyche would not think her sisters’ crime
So gross and strange, nor coud her danger see;
Since ’twere so easy, if at any time
They show’d the venom of their hearts, that she
Should fan them off upon the willing gust.
So she refused, and claiming truer trust,
Would in no wise unto their death agree.
JULY
1
‘What think you, sister:’ thus one envious fiend
To other spake upon their homeward route,
‘What of the story that our wit hath glean’d
Of this mysterious lover, who can shoot
In thirty days from beardless youth to prime,
With wisdom in his face before his time,
And snowy locks upon his head to boot?’
2
‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘true, she lied not well;
And thence I gather knows no more than we:
For surely ’tis a spirit insensible
To whom she is wedded, one she cannot see.
’Tis that I fear; for if ’tis so, her child
Will be a god, and she a goddess styled,
Which, though I die to let it, shall not be.
3
‘Lament we thus no longer. Come, consult
What may be done.’ And home they came at night,
Yet not to rest, but of their plots occult
Sat whispering on their beds; and ere ’twas light
Resolving on the deed coud not defer;
But roused the sleeping house with sudden stir,
And sallied forth alone to work their spite.
4
And with the noon were climb’d upon the peak,
And swam down on the Zephyr as before;
But now with piercing cry and doleful shriek
They force their entrance through the golden door,
Feigning the urgency of bitter truth;
Such as deforms a friendly face with ruth,
When kindness may not hide ill tidings more.
5
Then Psyche when she heard their wailful din,
And saw their countenances wan and worn
With travel, vigil, and disfiguring sin,
Their hair dishevel’d and their habits torn,
For trembling scarce could ask what ill had hapt;
And they alert with joy to see her trapt,
Launch’d forth amain, and on their drift were borne.
6
‘O Psyche, happiest certainly and blest
Up to this hour,’ they said, ‘thou surely wert,
Being of thy fearful peril unpossest;
Which now we would not tell but to avert.
But we in solemn truth thy spouse have found
To be the dragon of this mountain ground,
Who holds thee here to work thy shame and hurt.
7
‘As yesternight we rode upon the wind
He issued to pursue us from the wood;
We saw his back, that through the tree-tops finn’d,
His fiery eyes glared from their wrinkl’d hood.
Lo, now betimes the oracle, which said
How to the savage beast thou shouldst be wed,
Is plainly for thy safety understood.
8
‘Long time hath he been known to all that dwell
Upon the plain; but now his secret lair
Have we discover’d, which none else coud tell:
Though many women fallen in his snare
Hath he enchanted; who, tradition saith,
Taste love awhile, ere to their cruel death
They pass in turn upon the summits bare.
9
‘Fly with us while thou mayst: no more delay;
Renounce the spells of this accursed vale.
We come to save thee, but we dare not stay;
Among these sightless spirits our senses quail.
Fly with us, fly!’ Then Psyche, for her soul
Was soft and simple, lost her self-control,
And, thinking only of the horrid tale,
10
‘Dear sisters,’ said she, and her sobbing speech
Was broken by her terror, ‘it is true
That much hath hapt to stablish what ye teach;
For ne’er hath it been granted me to view
My husband; and, for aught I know, he may
Be even that cruel dragon, which ye say
Peer’d at you from the forest to pursue.
11
‘’Tis sure that scarcely can I win his grace
To see you here; and still he mischief vows
If ever I should ask to see his face,
Which, coming in the dark, he ne’er allows.
Therefore, if ye can help, of pity show,
Since doubt I must, how I may come to know
What kind of spirit it is that is my spouse.’
12
Then to her cue the younger was afore:
‘Hide thou a razor,’ cried she, ‘near thy bed;
And have a lamp prepared, but whelm thereo’er
Some cover, that no light be from it shed.
And when securely in first sleep he lies,
Look on him well, and ere he can arise,
Gashing his throat, cut off his hideous head.’
13
Which both persuading, off they flew content,
Divining that whate’er she was forbid
Was by her lover for her safety meant,
Which only coud be sure while he was hid.
But Psyche, to that miserable deed
Being now already in her mind agreed,
Wander’d alone, and knew not what she did.
14
Now she would trust her lover, now in turn
Made question of his bidding as unjust;
But thirsting curiosity to learn
His secret overcame her simple trust,
O’ercame her spoken troth, o’ercame her fear;
And she prepared, as now the hour drew near,
The mean contrivances, nor felt disgust.
15
She set the lamp beneath a chair, and cloked
Thickly its rebel lustre from the eye:
And laid the knife, to mortal keenness stroked,
Within her reach, where she was wont to lie:
And took her place full early; but her heart
Beat fast, and stay’d her breath with sudden start,
Feeling her lover’s arm laid fond thereby.
16
But when at last he slept, then she arose,
All faint and tremulous: and though it be
That wrong betrayeth innocence with shews
Of novelty, its guilt from shame to free,
Yet ’twas for shame her hand so strangely shook
That held the steel, and from the cloke that took
The lamp, and raised it o’er the bed to see.
17
She had some fear she might not well discern
By that small flame a monster in the gloom;
When lo! the air about her seem’d to burn,
And bright celestial radiance fill’d the room.
Too plainly O she saw, O fair to see!
Eros, ’twas Eros’ self, her lover, he,
The God of love, reveal’d in deathless bloom.
18
Her fainting strength forsook her; on her knees
Down by the bed she sank; the shameless knife
Fell flashing, and her heart took thought to seize
Its desperate haft, and end her wicked life.
Yet coud she not her loving eyes withdraw
From her fair sleeping lover, whom she saw
Only to know she was no more his wife.
19
O treasure of all treasures, late her own!
O loss above all losses, lost for aye!
Since there was no repentance coud atone
For her dishonour, nor her fate withstay.
But yet ’twas joy to have her love in sight;
And, to the rapture yielding while she might,
She gazed upon his body where he lay.
20
Above all mortal beauty, as was hers,
She saw a rival; but if passion’s heart
Be rightly read by subtle questioners,
It owns a wanton and a gentler part.
And Psyche wonder’d, noting every sign
By which the immortal God, her spouse divine,
Betray’d the image of our earthly art;
21
His thickly curling hair, his ruddy cheeks,
And pouting lips, his soft and dimpl’d chin,
The full and cushion’d eye, that idly speaks
Of self-content and vanity within,
The forward, froward ear, and smooth to touch
His body sleek, but rounded overmuch
For dignity of mind and pride akin.
22
She noted that the small irradiant wings,
That from his shoulders lay along at rest,
Were yet disturb’d with airy quiverings,
As if some wakeful spirit his blood possest;
She feared he was awaking, but they kept
Their sweet commotion still, and still he slept,
And still she gazed with never-tiring zest.
23
And now the colour of her pride and joy
Outflush’d the hue of Eros; she, so cold,
To have fired the passion of the heartless boy,
Whom none in heaven or earth were found to hold!
Psyche, the earthborn, to be prized above
The heavenly Graces by the God of love,
And worshipt by his wantonness untold!
24
Nay, for that very thing she loved him more,
More than herself her sweet self’s complement:
Until the sight of him again upbore
Her courage, and renew’d her vigour spent.
And looking now around, she first espied
Where at the bed’s foot, cast in haste aside,
Lay his full quiver, and his bow unbent.
25
One of those darts, of which she had heard so oft,
She took to try if ’twas so very keen;
And held its point against her finger soft
So gently, that to touch it scarce was seen;
Yet was she sharply prickt, and felt the fire
Run through her veins; and now a strange desire
Troubl’d her heart, which ne’er before had been:
26
Straight sprang she to her lover on the bed,
And kisst his cheek, and was not satisfied:
When, O the lamp, held ill-balanced o’erhead,
One drop of burning oil spill’d from its side
On Eros’ naked shoulder as he slept,
Who waken’d by the sudden smart uplept
Upon the floor, and all the mischief eyed.
27
With nervous speed he seized his bow, and past
Out of the guilty chamber at a bound;
But Psyche, following his flight as fast,
Caught him, and crying threw her arms around:
Till coming to the court he rose in air;
And she, close clinging in her last despair,
Was dragg’d, and then lost hold and fell to ground.
28
Wailing she fell; but he, upon the roof
Staying his feet, awhile his flight delay’d:
And turning to her as he stood aloof
Beside a cypress, whose profoundest shade
Drank the reflections of the dreamy night
In its stiff pinnacle, the nimble light
Of million stars upon his body play’d:
29
‘O simple-hearted Psyche,’ thus he spake,
And she upraised her piteous eyes and hands,
‘O simple-hearted Psyche, for thy sake
I dared to break my mother’s stern commands;
And gave thee godlike marriage in the place
Of vilest shame; and, not to hurt thy grace,
Spared thee my arrows, which no heart withstands.
30
‘But thou, for doubt I was some evil beast,
Hast mock’d the warnings of my love, to spy
Upon my secret, which concern’d thee least,
Seeing that thy joy was never touch’d thereby.
By faithless prying thou hast work’d thy fall,
And, even as I foretold thee, losest all
For looking on thy happiness too nigh:
31
‘Which loss may be thine ample punishment.
But to those fiends, by whom thou wert misled,
Go tell each one in turn that I have sent
This message, that I love her in thy stead;
And bid them by their love haste hither soon.’
Whereat he fled; and Psyche in a swoon
Fell back upon the marble floor as dead.
AUGUST
1
When from the lowest ebbing of her blood
The fluttering pulses thrill’d and swell’d again,
Her stricken heart recovering force to flood
With life the sunken conduits of her brain,
Then Psyche, where she had fallen, numb and cold
Arose, but scarce her quaking sense control’d,
Seeing the couch where she that night had lain.
2
The level sunbeams search’d the grassy ground
For diamond dewdrops. Ah! was this the place?
Where was the court, her home? she look’d around
And question’d with her memory for a space.
There was the cypress, there the well-known wood,
That wall’d the spot: ’twas here her palace stood,
As surely as ’twas vanish’d without trace.
3
Was all a dream? To think that all was dreamt
Were now the happier thought; but arguing o’er
That dream it was, she fell from her attempt,
Feeling the wifely burden that she bore.
Nay, true, ’twas true. She had had all and lost;
The joy, the reckless wrong, the heavy cost
Were hers, the dead end now, and woe in store.
4
What to be done? Fainting and shelterless
Upon the mountain it were death to bide:
And harbour knew she none, where her distress
Might comfort find, or love’s dishonour hide;
Nor felt she any dread like that of home:
Yet forth she must, albeit to rove and roam
An outcast o’er the country far and wide.
5
Anon she marvel’d noting from the vale
A path lead downward to the plain below,
Crossing the very site, whereon the pale
Of all her joy had stood few hours ago;
A run of mountain beasts, that keep their track
Through generations, and for ages back
Had trod the self-same footing to and fro.
6
That would she try: so forth she took her way,
Turning her face from the dishonour’d dell,
Adown the broadening eastward lawns, which lay
In gentle slant, till suddenly they fell
In sheer cliff; whence the path that went around,
Clomb by the bluffs, or e’er it downward wound
Beneath that precipice impassable.
7
There once she turn’d, and gazing up the slope
She bid the scene of all her joy adieu;
‘Ay, and farewell,’ she cried, ‘farewell to hope,
Since there is none will rescue me anew,
Who have kill’d God’s perfection with a doubt.’
Which said, she took the path that led about,
And hid the upland pleasance from her view.
8
But soon it left her, entering ’neath the shade
Of cedar old and russeted tall pine,
Whose mighty tops, seen from the thorny glade,
Belted the hills about; and now no sign
Had she to guide her, save the slow descent.
But swiftly o’er the springy floor she went,
And drew the odorous air like draughts of wine.
9
Then next she past a forest thick and dark
With heavy ilexes and platanes high,
And came to long lush grass; and now coud mark
By many a token that the plain was nigh.
When lo! a river: to whose brink at last
Being come, upon the bank her limbs she cast,
And through her sad tears watch’d the stream go by.
10
And now the thought came o’er her that in death
There was a cure for sorrow, that before
Her eyes ran Lethe, she might take one breath
Of water and be freed for evermore.
Leaning to look into her tomb, thereon
She saw the horror of her image wan,
And up she rose at height to leap from shore.
11
When suddenly a mighty voice, that fell
With fury on her ears, their sense to scare,
That bounding from the tree trunks like the yell
Of hundred brazen trumpets, cried ‘Forbear!
Forbear, fond maid, that froward step to take,
For life can cure the ills that love may make;
But for the harm of death is no repair.’
12
Then looking up she saw an uncouth form
Perch’d on the further bank, whose parted lips
Volley’d their friendly warning in a storm:
A man he might have been, but for the tips
Of horns appearing from his shaggy head,
For o’er his matted beard his face was red,
And all his shape was manlike to the hips.
13
In forehead low, keen eye, and nostril flat
He bore the human grace in mean degree,
But, set beneath his body squat and fat,
Legs like a goat’s, and from the hairy knee
The shank fell spare; and, though crosswise he put
His limbs in easeful posture, for the foot
The beast’s divided hoof was plain to see.
14
Him then she knew the mighty choric God,
The great hill-haunting and tree-loving Pan;
Whom Zeus had laught to see when first he trod
Olympus, neither god nor beast nor man:
Who every rocky peak and snowy crest
Of the Aspran mountains for his own possest,
And all their alps with bacchic rout o’erran:
15
Whom, when his pipe he plays on loud and sweet,
And o’er the fitted reeds his moist lip flees,
Around in measured step with nimble feet
Water-nymphs dance and Hamadryades:
And all the woodland’s airy folk, who shun
Man’s presence, to his frolic pastime run
From their perennial wells and sacred trees.
16
Now on his knee his pipe laid by, he spoke
With flippant tongue, wounding unwittingly
The heart he sought to cheer with jest and joke.
‘And what hast thou to do with misery,’
He said, ‘who hast such beauty as might gain
The love of Eros? Cast away thy pain,
And give thy soul to mirth and jollity.
17
‘Thy mortal life is but a brittle vase,
But as thee list with wine or tears to fill;
For all the drops therein are Ohs and Ahs
Of joy or grief according to thy will;
And wouldst thou learn of me my merry way,
I’d teach thee change thy lover every day,
And prize the cup that thou wert fain to spill.
18
‘Nay, if thou plunge thou shalt not drown nor sink,
For I will to thee o’er the stream afloat,
And bear thee safe; and O I know a drink
For care, that makes sweet music in the throat.
Come live with me, my love; I’ll cure thy chance:
For I can laugh and quaff, and pipe and dance,
Swim like a fish, and caper like a goat.’
19
Speaking, his brute divinity explored
The secret of her silence; and old Pan
Grew kind and told her of a shallow ford
Where lower down the stream o’er pebbles ran,
And one might pass at ease with ankles dry:
Whither she went, and crossing o’er thereby,
Her lonely wanderings through the isle began.
20
But none could tell, no, nor herself had told
Where food she found, or shelter through the land
By day or night; until by fate control’d
She came by steep ways to the southern strand,
Where, sacred to the Twins and Britomart,
Pent in its rocky theatre apart,
A little town stood on the level sand.
21
‘Twas where her younger sister’s husband reign’d:
And Psyche to the palace gate drew near,
Helplessly still by Eros’ best constrain’d,
And knocking begg’d to see her sister dear;
But when in state stepp’d down that haughty queen,
And saw the wan face spent with tears and teen,
She smiled, and said ‘Psyche, what dost thou here?’
22
Then Psyche told how, having well employ’d
Their means, and done their bidding not amiss,
Looking on him her hand would have destroy’d,
’Twas Eros; whom in love leaning to kiss,
Even as she kisst, a drop of burning oil
Fall’n from the lamp had served her scheme to foil,
Discovering her in vision of her bliss;
23
Wherewith the god stung, like a startled bird
Arose in air, and she fell back in swoon;
‘But ere he parted,’ said she, ‘he confer’d
On thee the irrecoverable boon
By prying lost to me: _Go tell_, he said,
_Thy sister that I love her in thy stead,
And bid her by her love haste hither soon_.’
24
Which when that heart of malice heard, it took
The jealous fancy of her silly lust:
And pitilessly with triumphant look
She drank the flattery, and gave full trust;
And leaving Psyche ere she more could tell,
Ran off to bid her spouse for aye farewell,
And in his ear this ready lie she thrust:
25
‘My dearest sister Psyche, she whose fate
We mourn’d, hath reappear’d alive and hale,
But brings sad news; my father dies: full late
These tidings come, but love may yet avail;
Let me be gone.’ And stealing blind consent,
Forth on that well-remember’d road she went,
And climb’d upon the peak above the dale.
26
There on the topmost rock, where Psyche first
Had by her weeping sire been left to die,
She stood a moment, in her hope accurst
Being happy; and the cliffs took up her cry
With chuckling mockery from her tongue above,
_Zephyr, sweet Zephyr, waft me to my love_!
When off she lept upon his wings to fly.
27
But as a dead stone, from a height let fall,
Silent and straight is gather’d by the force
Of earth’s vast mass upon its weight so small,
In speed increasing as it nears its source
Of motion--by which law all things so’er
Are clutch’d and dragg’d and held--so fell she there,
Like a dead stone, down in her headlong course.
28
The disregardful silence heard her strike
Upon the solid crags; her dismal shriek
Rang on the rocks and died out laughter-like
Along the vale in hurried trebles weak;
And soon upon her, from their skiey haunt
Fell to their feast the great birds bald and gaunt,
And gorged on her fair flesh with bloody beak.
29
But Psyche, when her sister was gone forth,
Went out again her wandering way to take:
And following a stream that led her north,
After some days she pass’d the Corian Lake,
Whereby Athena’s temple stands, and he
Who traverses the isle from sea to sea
May by the plain his shortest journey make:
30
Till on the northern coast arrived she came
Upon a city built about a port,
The which she knew, soon as she heard the name,
Was where her elder sister had her court;
To whom, as Eros had commanded her,
She now in turn became the messenger
Of vengeful punishment, that fell not short:
31