Ode
to Psyche was
one of the final works of poetry that was published. His collection,
Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems was published in 1820, a
year before Keats’ death and before his final visit to Rome. Keats’ mastery of
the poetic art in such short a time is perhaps one of the reasons why he is
still so prolifically worshipped today.
Keats’s
speaker opens the poem with an address to the goddess Psyche, urging her to
hear his words, and asking that she forgive him for singing to her her own
secrets. He says that while wandering through the forest that very day, he
stumbled upon “two fair creatures” lying side by side in the grass, beneath a “whisp’ring
roof” of leaves, surrounded by flowers.
They
embraced one another with both their arms and wings, and though their lips did
not touch, they were close to one another and ready “past kisses to outnumber.”
The speaker says he knew the winged boy, but asks who the girl was. He answers
his own question: She was Psyche.
In the second stanza, the speaker addresses Psyche again, describing her as the youngest and most beautiful of all the Olympian gods and goddesses. He believes this, he says, despite the fact that, unlike other divinities, Psyche has none of the trappings of worship: She has no temples, no altars, no choir to sing for her, and so on.
In the second stanza, the speaker addresses Psyche again, describing her as the youngest and most beautiful of all the Olympian gods and goddesses. He believes this, he says, despite the fact that, unlike other divinities, Psyche has none of the trappings of worship: She has no temples, no altars, no choir to sing for her, and so on.
In the third
stanza, the speaker attributes this lack to Psyche’s youth; she has come into
the world too late for “antique vows” and the “fond believing lyre.” But the
speaker says that even in the fallen days of his own time, he would like to pay
homage to Psyche and become her choir, her music, and her oracle. In the fourth
stanza, he continues with these declarations, saying he will become Psyche’s
priest and build her a temple in an “untrodden region” of his own mind, a
region surrounded by thought that resemble the beauty of nature and tended by
“the gardener Fancy,” or imagination. He promises Psyche “all soft delight” and
says that the window of her new abode will be left open at night, so that her
winged boy—”the warm Love”—can come in.
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