TELL me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear! Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, When the high heaven itself was thins; When piety confess'd the flame, And even thy errors were divine! Did ever Muse's hand, so fair, A glory round thy temples spread? Did ever lip's ambrosial air Such perfume o'er thy altars shed? One maid there was, who round her lyre The mystic myrtle wildly wreathed -- But all @3her@1 sighs were sighs of fire, The myrtle wither'd, as she breathed! O you, that love's celestial dream, In all its purity would know, Let not the senses' ardent beam Too strongly through the vision glow! Love sweetest lies, conceal'd in night, The night where Heaven has bid him lie Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light, Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly! Dear Psyche! many a charmed hour, Through many a wild and magic waste, To the fair fount and blissful bower Thy mazy foot my soul hath traced! Where'er thy joys are number'd now, Beneath whatever shades of rest, The Genius of the starry brow Has chain'd thee to thy Cupid's breast; Whether above the horizon dim, Along whose verge our spirits stray, Half sunk within the shadowy brim, Half brighten'd by the eternal ray, Thou risest to a cloudless pole! Or, lingering here, dost love to mark The twilight walk of many a soul Through sunny good and evil dark; Still be the song to Psyche dear, The song, whose dulcet tide was given To keep her name as fadeless here, As nectar keeps her soul in heaven! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OCTAVES: 21 by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY CANOVA by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE NEW ARRIVAL by GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE THE CUPBOARD by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT - BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS by HERMAN MELVILLE RICHARD CORY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON INTROSPECTIVE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI MONNA INNOMINATA, A SONNET OF SONNETS: 5 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |