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Title: Psyche, Before The Tribunal Of Venus
Author: Nathaniel Parker Willis [
More Titles by Willis]
Lift up thine eyes, sweet Psyche! What is she
That those soft fringes timidly should fall
Before her, and thy spiritual brow
Be shadowed as her presence were a cloud?
A loftier gift is thine than she can give--
That queen of beauty. She may mould the brow
To perfectness, and give unto the form
A beautiful proportion; she may stain
The eye with a celestial blue--the cheek
With carmine of the sunset; she may breathe
Grace into every motion, like the play
Of the least visible tissue of a cloud;
She may give all that is within her own
Bright cestus--and one silent look of thine,
Like stronger magic, will outcharm it all.
Ay, for the soul is better than its frame,
The spirit than its temple. What's the brow,
Or the eye's lustre, or the step of air,
Or color, but the beautiful links that chain
The mind from its rare element? There lies
A talisman in intellect which yields
Celestial music, when the master hand
Touches it cunningly. It sleeps beneath
The outward semblance, and to common sight
Is an invisible and hidden thing;
But when the lip is faded, and the cheek
Robbed of its daintiness, and when the form
Witches the sense no more, and human love
Falters in its idolatry, this spell
Will hold its strength unbroken, and go on
Stealing anew the affections.
Marvel not
That Love leans sadly on his bended bow.
He hath found out the loveliness of mind,
And he is spoilt for beauty. So 'twill be
Ever--the glory of the human form
Is but a perishing thing, and Love will droop
When its brief grace hath faded; but the mind
Perisheth not, and when the outward charm
Hath had its brief existence, it awakes,
And is the lovelier that it slept so long--
Like wells that by the wasting of their flow
Have had their deeper fountains broken up.
[The end]
Nathaniel Parker Willis's poem: Psyche, Before The Tribunal Of Venus
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