They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:

      O folly! What is love! and where is it?

      And for that poor Ambition! it springs

      From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;

      For Poesy! – no, – she has not a joy, -

      At least for me, – so sweet as drowsy noons,

      And evenings steep’d in honied indolence;

      O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,

      That I may never know how change the moons,

      Or hear the voice of busy commonsense!

      And once more came they by; – alas! wherefore?

      My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;

      My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er

      With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:

      The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,

      Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;

      The open casement press’d a new-leav’d vine,

      Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;

      O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!

      Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

      So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise

      My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;

      For I would not be dieted with praise,

      A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!

      Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

      In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;

      Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

      And for the day faint visions there is store;

      Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,

      Into the clouds, and never more return!

      No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

      Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

      Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d

      By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

      Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

      Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

      Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

      A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;

      For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

      And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

      But when the melancholy fit shall fall

      Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

      That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

      And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

      Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

      Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

      Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

      Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

      Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

      And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

      She dwells with Beauty – Beauty that must die;

      And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

      Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

      Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

      Ay, in the very temple of Delight

      Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

      Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

      Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

      His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

      And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

      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 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.

      Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

      In some untrodden region of my mind,

      Where