Heathen mythology Part 13

"So pure, so soft, with sweet attraction shone Fair Psyche, kneeling at the ethereal throne; Won with coy smiles the admiring court of Jove, And warmed the bosom of unconquered love.

Beneath a moving shade of fruits and flowers, Onward they march to Hymen's sacred bowers; With lifted torch he lights the festive strain, Sublime, and leads them in his golden chain; Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows, And hides with mystic veil their blus.h.i.+ng brows.

Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling, Meet with warm lip, and clasp with nestling wing.

Hence plastic nature, as oblivion whelms Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms; Soft joys disport on purple plumes unfurled, And love and beauty rule the willing world."

DARWIN.

Thus Cupid was at length re-united to his beloved Psyche, and their loves were speedily crowned by the birth of a child, whom his parents named Pleasure.

PSYCHE.

"Oh! G.o.ddess, hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung, Even into thine own soft-couched ear: Surely I dreamt to day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awakened eyes?

I wandered in a forest thoughtlessly, And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side, In deepest gra.s.s, beneath the whispering roof Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A brooklet, scarce espied: 'Mid hushed, cool rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed, Blue, silver white, and budded Tyrian, They lay calm breathing on the bedded gra.s.s; Their arms embraced, and their pinions too; Their lips touched not, but had not bade adieu, As if disjoined by soft handed slumber, And ready still, past kisses to outnumber, At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: The winged boy I knew; But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

His Psyche true!

{85} O latest born and loveliest vision far Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!

Fairer than Phoebus sapphire-regioned star Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, tho' temple thou hast none, Nor altar heaped with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet, From chain swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows Too, too late for the fond, believing lyre When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the air, the water and the fire."

KEATS.

Of this deity, poets have written until the G.o.d, become identified with the pa.s.sion, which is addressed by many as immortal.

"They sin who tell us Love can die; With life all other pa.s.sions fly, All others are but vanity; In heaven ambition cannot dwell Nor avarice in the vaults of h.e.l.l: Earthly these pa.s.sions of the earth They perish where they have their birth; But Love is indestructible: Its holy flame for ever burneth, From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.

Too oft on earth a troubled guest, At times deceived, at times opprest, It here is tried and purified, Then hath in heaven its perfect rest: It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest time of Love is there."

SOUTHEY.

Cupid is usually represented as a winged infant, naked, armed with a bow and quiver full of arrows. On gems and all other pieces of antiquity, he is represented as amusing himself with childish diversions. Sometimes, like a conqueror, he marches triumphantly with a helmet on his head, a spear on his shoulder, and a buckler on his arm, intimating that even Mars himself owns the superiority of love.

"To Love, the soft and blooming child, I touch the harp in descant wild; To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers, The boy who breathes and blushes flowers, To Love, for heaven and earth adore him, And G.o.ds and mortals bow before him!"

ANACREON.

Among the ancients, he was wors.h.i.+pped with the same solemnity {86} as his mother Venus; and as his influence was extended over the heavens, the sea and the earth, and even the empire of the dead, his divinity was universally acknowledged, and vows, prayers and sacrifices, were daily offered to him.

------------"Bright-winged child!

Who has another care when thou hast smiled?

Unfortunates on earth, we see at last All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast Our spirits, fanned away by thy light pinions.

O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions!

G.o.d of warm pulses, and dishevelled hair; Dear unseen light in darkness! eclipser Of light in light! delicious poisoner!

Thy venomed goblet will we quaff, until We fill--we fill!"

KEATS.

One of the most beautiful of his temples was built within a myrtle grove, the G.o.d being extended in the att.i.tude of a sleeping child, under the t.i.tle of L'Amore Dominatore.

"They built a temple for the G.o.d, 'Twas in a myrtle grove, Where the sweet bee and b.u.t.terfly, Vied for each blossom's love.

"I looked upon the altar,--there The pictured semblance lay, Of him the temple's lord, it shone More beautiful than day.

"It was a sleeping child, as fair As the first-born of spring: Like Indian gold waved the bright curls, In many a sunny ring.

"I heard them hymn his name, his power, I heard them, and I smiled: How could they say the earth was ruled, By but a sleeping child?

"I went then forth into the world, To see what might be there; And there I heard a voice of woe, Of weeping, and despair.

"I saw a youthful warrior stand In his first light of fame, His native city, filled the air With her deliverer's name:

"I saw him hurry from the crowd, And fling his laurel crown, In weariness, in hopelessness, In utter misery down.

"And what the sorrow, then I asked.

Can thus the warrior move, To scorn his meed of victory?

They told me it was Love!

{87}

"I sought the Forum, there was one, With dark and haughty brow, His voice was as the trumpet's tone, Mine ear rings with it now.

"They quailed before his flas.h.i.+ng eye, They watched his lightest word: When suddenly that eye was dim, That voice no longer heard.

"I looked upon his lonely hour, The weary solitude: When over dark, and bitter thoughts, The sick hearts' left to brood.

"I marked the haughty spirit's strife, To rend its bonds in vain: Again I heard the cause of ill, And heard loves name again.

"I saw an Urn, and round it hung, An April diadem Of flowers, telling they mourned one, Faded and fair like them.

"I turned to tales of other days, They spoke of breath and bloom: And proud hearts that were bowed by love, Into an early tomb.

"I heard of every suffering, That on this earth can be: How can they call a sleeping child, A likeness, love, of thee?

"They cannot paint thee, let them dream A dark and nameless thing: Why give the likeness of the dove, Where is the serpent's sting?

L. E. L.

We cannot better conclude our account of this important Deity, than by the following epigram, written under one of his statues.

"Whoe'er thou art, thy master see, Who was, or is,--or is to be."

VOLTAIRE.

[Ill.u.s.tration] {88}

MINERVA.