Psyche

O MELANCHOLY tender Psyche, sleep.
Lily of dawn out of the dark hours growing,
Thy supple arms and lips with freshness glowing
Have made my heart strong with contentment deep.

 

O little shy white soul, thou hast believed me
To be what thy virginity desired,
Nor hath thy kiss of milk any honey tired,
Long as the shadow like my mouth deceived thee.

 

No word, embrace, nor kisses sick with ache,
Betrayed the secret, penitential sorrow;
But wakening with the revealing morrow,
Thy fragile frame would shudder fit to break,

 

If dawn, which thy serene lids had unsealed,
Not the sweet conqueror of thy dreamland mists,
But clenched above thy head, even thine, my fists,
And, rolled in hate and wrath, mine eyes revealed;

 

For I hate thee Psyche, with my love's foreseeing,
For days to come and floods of future tears
Perfidious, and the lures of wasting years,
Which some day shall gush forth from thy hid being.

 

But while this night divine is yet my slave
Let me from metal of sideral deeps
Fashion the amorous mask a hero keeps,
Laughing as April, and as autumn grave;

 

A dead thing that on living lips is laid,
The mask my writhen face shall wholly hide;
And now the first dawn breaks upon a bride,
In whom the woman shall survive the maid.

 

Awake, and ope thy silent mouth anew,
From me thou shalt but hear proud words that ring,
I stand erect beneath my sorrow's sting
Laurelled with gold and like my own statue.