’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