Romanticism on the Net

Issue's Table of Contents

The following is a (simplified) transcript of the manuscript version of the 'Ode to Psyche' which I used throughout my article. The source text and facsimile can be found in: Robert Gittings, ed., The Odes of Keats and their Earliest Known Manuscripts (London: Heinemann, 1970) pp. 50-55.

Ode to Psyche

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, [5]
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 fan [10]
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A Brooklet scarce espied.
Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, freckle pink, and budded syrian,
They lay, calm-breathing, on the bedded grass, [15]
Their arms embraced and their pinions too;
Their lips touch'd not, but had not bid adieu
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to out number
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean Love. [20]
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! [25]
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 [30]
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. [35]

O Bloomiest! 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 [40]
From happy Pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing by my own eyes inspired;
O let me be thy Choir and make moan
Upon the midnight hours; [45]
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 [50]
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; [55]
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 if a working brain, [60]
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 [65]
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night
To let the warm Love in.