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"Ode to
Psyche," the first of Keats's famous odes, was published in 1820, appearing in his final the collection titled Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other
Poems, the poem is sketched below-
Ode to Psyche
BY JOHN
KEATS
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:
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;
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.
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 inspir'd.
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.
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 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,
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!