TO THE UNKNOWN EROS: BOOK 2: 13. DE NATURA DEORUM by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE

'Good-morrow, Psyche! What's thine errand now?
What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak,
What shame is in thy childish cheek,
What terror on thy brow?
Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek?
Thy body's sudden beauty my sight old
Stings, like an agile bead of boiling gold,
And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's
Whose boughs wave many ways in one great breeze.'
'O Pythoness, to strangest story hark:
A dreadful God was with me in the dark --'
'How many a Maid --
Has never told me that! And thou'rt afraid --'
'He'll come no more,
Or come but twice,
Or thrice,
Or only thrice ten thousand times thrice o'er!'
'For want of wishing thou mean'st not to miss.
We know the Lover, Psyche, by the kiss!'
'If speech of honey could impart the sweet,
The world were all in tears and at his feet!
But not to tell of that in tears come I, but this:
I'm foolish, weak, and small,
And fear to fall.
If long he stay away, O frightful dream, wise Mother,
What keeps me but that I, gone crazy, kiss some other!'
'The fault were his! But know,
Sweet little Daughter sad,
He did but feign to go;
And never more
Shall cross thy window-sill,
Or pass beyond thy door,
Save by thy will.
He's present now in some dim place apart
Of the ivory house wherewith thou mad'st him glad.
Nay, this I whisper thee,
Since none is near,
Or, if one were, since only thou could'st hear,
That happy thing which makes thee flush and start,
Like infant lips in contact with thy heart,
Is He!'
'Yea, this I know, but never can believe!
O, hateful light! when shall mine own eyes mark
My beauty, which this victory did achieve?'
'When thou, like Gods and owls, canst see by dark.'
'In vain I cleanse me from all blurring error --'
''Tis the last rub that polishes the mirror.'
'It takes fresh blurr each breath which I respire.'
'Poor Child, don't cry so! Hold it to the fire.'
'Ah, nought these dints can e'er do out again!'
'Love is not love which does not sweeter live
For having something dreadful to forgive.'
'Sadness and change and pain
Shall me for ever stain;
For, though my blissful fate
Be for a billion years,
How shall I stop my tears
That life was once so low and Love arrived so late!'
'Sadness is beauty's savour, and pain is
The exceedingly keen edge of bliss;
Nor, without swift mutation, would the heav'ns be aught.'
'How to behave with him I'd fain be taught.
A maid, meseems, within a God's embrace,
Should bear her like a Goddess, or, at least, a Grace.'
'When Gods, to Man or Maid below,
As men or birds appear,
A kind 'tis of incognito,
And that, not them, is what they choose we should revere.'
'Advise me what oblation vast to bring,
Some least part of my worship to confess!'
'A woman is a little thing,
And in things little lies her comeliness.'
'Must he not soon with mortal tire to toy?'
'The bashful meeting of strange Depth and Height
Breeds the forever new-born babe, Delight;
And, as thy God is more than mortal boy,
So bashful more the meeting, and so more the joy.'
'He loves me dearly, but he shakes a whip
Of deathless scorpions at my slightest slip.
Mother, last night he call'd me "Cipsy," so
Roughly it smote me like a blow!
Yet, oh,
I love him, as none surely e'er could love
Our People's pompous but good-natured Jove.
@3He@1 used to send me stately overture;
But marriage-bonds, till now, I never could endure!'
'How should great Jove himself do else than miss
To win the woman he forgets to kiss;
Or, won, to keep his favour in her eyes,
If he's too soft or sleepy to chastise!
By Eros, her twain claims are ne'er forgot;
Her wedlock's marr'd when either's miss'd:
Or when she's kiss'd, but beaten not,
Or duly beaten, but not kiss'd.
Ah, Child, the sweet
Content, when we're both kiss'd and beat!
-- But whence these wounds? What Demon thee enjoins
To scourge thy shoulders white
And tender loins!'
''Tis nothing, Mother. Happiness at play,
And speech of tenderness no speech can say!'
'How learn'd thou art!
Twelve honeymoons profane had taught thy docile heart
Less than thine Eros, in a summer night!'
'Nay, do not jeer, but help my puzzled plight:
Because he loves so marvellously me,
And I with all he loves in love must be,
How to except myself I do not see.
Yea, now that other vanities are vain,
I'm vain, since him it likes, of being withal
Weak, foolish, small!'
'How can a Maid forget her ornaments!
The Powers, that hopeless doom the proud to die,
Unask'd smile pardon upon vanity,
Nay, praise it, when themselves are praised thereby.'
'Ill-match'd I am for a God's blandishments!
So great, so wise --'
'Gods, in the abstract, are, no doubt, most wise;
But, in the concrete, Girl, they're mysteries!
He's not with thee,
At all less wise nor more
Than human Lover is with her he deigns to adore.
He finds a fair capacity,
And fills it with himself, and glad would die
For that sole She.'
'Know'st thou some potion me awake to keep,
Lest, to the grief of that ne'er-slumbering Bliss,
Disgraced I sleep,
Wearied in soul by his bewildering kiss?'
'The Immortals, Psyche, moulded men from sods
That Maids from them might learn the ways of Gods.
Think, would a wakeful Youth his hard fate weep,
Lock'd to the tired breast of a Bride asleep?'
'Ah, me, I do not dream,
Yet all this does some heathen fable seem!'
'O'ermuch thou mind'st the throne he leaves above!
Between unequals sweet is equal love.'
'Nay, Mother, in his breast, when darkness blinds,
I cannot for my life but talk and laugh
With the large impudence of little minds!'
'Respectful to the Gods and meek,
According to one's lights, I grant
'Twere well to be;
But, on my word,
Child, any one, to hear you speak,
Would take you for a Protestant,
(Such fish I do foresee
When the charm'd fume comes strong on me,)
Or powder'd lackey, by some great man's board,
A deal more solemn than his Lord!
Know'st thou not, Girl, thine Eros loves to laugh?
And shall a God do anything by half?
He foreknew and predestinated all
The Great must pay for kissing things so small,
And ever loves his little Maid the more
The more she makes him laugh.'
'O, Mother, are you sure?'
Gaze steady where yon starless deep the gaze revolts,
And say,
Seest thou a Titan forging thunderbolts,
Or three fair butterflies at lovesome play?
And this I'll add, for succour of thy soul:
Lines parallel meet sooner than some think;
The least part oft is greater than the whole;
And, when you're thirsty, that's the time to drink.'
'Thy sacred words I ponder and revere,
And thank thee heartily that some are clear.'
'Clear speech to men is mostly speech in vain.
Their scope is by themselves so justly scann'd,
They still despise the things they understand;
But, to a pretty Maid like thee, I don't mind speaking plain.'
'Then one boon more to her whom strange Fate mocks
With a wife's duty but no wife's sweet right:
Could I at will but summon my Delight --'
'Thou of thy Jewel art the dainty box;
Thine is the charm which, any time, unlocks;
And this, it seems, thou hitt'st upon last night.
Now go, Child! For thy sake
I've talk'd till this stiff tripod makes my old limbs ache.'

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