August

When from the lowest ebbing of her bloodThe fluttering pulses thrill'd and swell'd again,Her stricken heart recovering force to floodWith life the sunken conduits of her brain,Then Psyche, where she had fallen, numb and coldArose, but scarce her quaking sense control'd,Seeing the couch where she that night had lain.

The level sunbeams search'd the grassy groundFor diamond dewdrops. Ah! was this the place?Where was the court, her home? she look'd aroundAnd 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.

Was all a dream? To think that all was dreamtWere now the happier thought; but arguing o'erThat 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 costWere hers, the dead end now, and woe in store.

What to be done? Fainting and shelterlessUpon the mountain it were death to bide:And harbour knew she none, where her distressMight comfort find, or love's dishonour hide;Nor felt she any dread like that of home:Yet forth she must, albeit to rove and roamAn outcast o'er the country far and wide.

Anon she marvel'd noting from the valeA path lead downward to the plain below,Crossing the very site, whereon the paleOf all her joy had stood few hours ago;A run of mountain beasts, that keep their trackThrough generations, and for ages backHad trod the self-same footing to and fro.

That would she try: so forth she took her way,Turning her face from the dishonour'd dell,Adown the broadening eastward lawns, which layIn gentle slant, till suddenly they fellIn sheer cliff: whence the path that went around,Clomb by the bluffs, or e'er it downward woundBeneath that precipice impassable.

There once she turn'd, and gazing up the slopeShe 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.

But soon it left her, entering 'neath the shadeOf cedar old and russeted tall pine,Whose mighty tops, seen from the thorny glade,Belted the hills about; and now no signHad 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.

Then next she past a forest thick and darkWith heavy ilexes and platanes high,And came to long lush grass; and now coud markBy many a token that the plain was nigh.When lo! a river: to whose brink at lastBeing come, upon the bank her limbs she cast,And through her sad tears watch'd the stream go by.

And now the thought came o'er her that in deathThere was a cure for sorrow, that beforeHer eyes ran Lethe, she might take one breathOf water and be freed for evermore.Leaning to look into her tomb, thereonShe saw the horror of her image wan,And up she rose at height to leap from shore.

When suddenly a mighty voice, that fellWith fury on her ears, their sense to scare,That bounding from the tree trunks like the yellOf 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.'

Then looking up she saw an uncouth formPerch'd on the further bank, whose parted lipsVolley'd their friendly warning in a storm:A man he might have been, but for the tipsOf 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.

In forehead low, keen eye, and nostril flatHe bore the human grace in mean degree,But, set beneath his body squat and fat,Legs like a goat's, and from the hairy kneeThe shank fell spare; and, though crosswise he putHis limbs in easeful posture, for the footThe beast's divided hoof was plain to see.

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 trodOlympus, neither god nor beast nor man:Who every rocky peak and snowy crestOf the Aspran mountains for his own possest,And all their alps with bacchic rout o'erran:

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 feetWater-nymphs dance and Hamadryades:And all the woodland's airy folk, who shunMan's presence, to his frolic pastime runFrom their perennial wells and sacred trees.

Now on his knee his pipe laid by, he spokeWith flippant tongue, wounding unwittinglyThe 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 gainThe love of Eros? Cast away thy pain,And give thy soul to mirth and jollity.

'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 AhsOf 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.

'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 drinkFor 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.'

Speaking, his brute divinity exploredThe secret of her silence; and old PanGrew kind and told her of a shallow fordWhere 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.

But none coud tell, no, nor herself had toldWhere food she found, or shelter through the landBy day or night; until by fate control'dShe 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.

'Twas where her younger sister's husband reign'd:And Psyche to the palace gate drew near,Helplessly still by Eros' hest 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?'

Then Psyche told how, having well employ'dTheir 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 oilFall'n from the lamp had served her scheme to foil,Discovering her in vision of her bliss;

Wherewith the god stung, like a startled birdArose in air, and she fell back in swoon;'But ere he parted,' said she, 'he confer'dOn thee the irrecoverable boonBy 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.

Which when that heart of malice heard, it tookThe jealous fancy of her silly lust:And pitilessly with triumphant lookShe drank the flattery, and gave full trust;And leaving Psyche ere she more coud tell,Ran off to bid her spouse for aye farewell,And in his ear this ready lie she thrust:

'My dearest sister Psyche, she whose fateWe mourn'd, hath reappear'd alive and hale,But brings sad news; my father dies: full lateThese 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.

There on the topmost rock, where Psyche firstHad by her weeping sire been left to die,She stood a moment, in her hope accurstBeing happy; and the cliffs took up her cryWith chuckling mockery from her tongue above,Zephyr, sweet Zephyr, waft me to my love!When off she lept upon his wings to fly.

But as a dead stone, from a height let fall,Silent and straight is gather'd by the forceOf earth's vast mass upon its weight so small,In speed increasing as it nears its sourceOf motion--by which law all things soe'erAre clutch'd and dragg'd and held--so fell she there,Like a dead stone, down in her headlong course.

The disregardful silence heard her strikeUpon the solid crags; her dismal shriekRang on the rocks and died out laughter-likeAlong the vale in hurried trebles weak;And soon upon her, from their skiey hauntFell to their feast the great birds bald and gauntAnd gorged on her fair flesh with bloody beak.

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 heWho traverses the isle from sea to seaMay by the plain his shortest journey make:

Till on the northern coast arrived she cameUpon 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 messengerOf vengeful punishment, that fell not short:

For she too hearing gan her heart exalt,Nor pity felt for Psyche's tears and moans,But, fellow'd with that other in her fault,Follow'd her to her fate upon the stones;And from the peak leaping like her belowThe self-same way unto the self-same woe,Lay dasht to death upon her sister's bones.