PHYCHF,

Otago Witness, Issue 2665, 12 April 1905, Page 68

PHYCHF,

One of three Exalted sisters! The very Queen ol Love, Grown envious of her beauty and the homage Paid to her purity " v noble men, Sent Eros down to mar her loveliness. He came, intent to work his mother's will, But when he saw the innocent maid asleep On the soft mint beside the stream, where sha Had laved her rounded limbs, he dared not

look Upon her perfect face and will her hurt. So to his palace in the wilderness He bore her secretly. Thessalian pines Knibowered her, and the slow stream shin*-

mered by Her still retreat. Sweet zephyrs gave sound To swaying groves. Innumerous birds among The branches trilled their loves, and unseen.

choirn Sang oft of highest love ; but, sweetest far, Tenfold intensifying all her life, Love's very self came in the stilly hours And blest her slumber. Long time she was

content To wait his coming, but there came a time When she desired to look again on those With whom her former life had been. Ha

heard Her often pleading. Yielding with warnings due, He gave her to her sisters once again. To these in innocence she related ail The joyousness that girt her and the deep Seclusion of her dwelling. With envy they Burned, and demanded who her lover might

be. "My blessing rests on faith alone," she said ; "I am forbidden to look upon his face Lest I should die, or worser thing befall My fragile life." Then did they simulate: "It, is a monster that embraceth thee, So hideous that he fears to show himselfThou art the creature of delusion ; dare To look upon him, and thy love will die! Were he as lovely as tbou deemest, he Would joy to give thy beauty to the world, And with thee bless our father's noble realm.'* When Psyche, by her love's mysterious power, Was to the woodland paradise returned In the stilly night, she shrank from his embrace * As from a baleful thing, and when he slept She rose, and turned her hidden taper's shino Full on his face. The mystery of Love Compounded in so sweet a shape before Nor since hath been on earth save when th,e

Son Of God was with us for a little while — No sportive boy, but one whose spirit had

borne The contact of the ages unperturbed, Save for the high defiance of fallen powers, Save for the touch of human suffering, And that of countless lower natures penned In tenements of clay. Poor Psyche! Then What floods of passion overswept her. "Lost* Lost is my love!" she cried, "for love may live In confidence alone. I* wander nov The solitary tracts, fain to retrieve This hasty moment." With her to the doors He went, and saw her tender-footed through The forest wander lone. The fields and hills Held forth no hope, and desolate was the

town Where myriads thronged. She gave her life

for those .Whom sin held down, and ever her love was

nigh To guard her tender innocence, and lift Her nigher to himself. When weary years "Were overgone, arid, wrinkled, grey, and wan, She waited only death, Love, glowing, came, Flushed with the might of olden memories:, He touched her into true, ethereal life, And now with th' immortals sitting, she Is crowned, and wedded with eternal love. — Chaeles Oscak, Palmer. March, 1905.