“Ode to Psyche” Summary

“Ode to Psyche” Themes

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  The Power and Beauty of the Imagination

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Ode to Psyche”

• Lines 1-4

  O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
            By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
  And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
            Even into thine own soft-conched ear:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-6

  Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
            The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-12

  I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
            And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
  Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
            In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof
            Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
                      A brooklet, scarce espied:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-20

  'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
            Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
  They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
            Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
            Their lips touch’d 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:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 21-27

  The winged boy I knew;
  But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
                      His Psyche true!
  O latest born and loveliest vision far
            Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!
  Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region’d star,
            Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 28-35

  Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
                      Nor altar heap’d 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-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 36-43

  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;
  Yet even in these days so far retir'd
            From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
            Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
  I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir’d.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 44-49

  So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
                      Upon the midnight hours;
  Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
            From swinged censer teeming;
  Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
            Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 50-57

  Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
            In some untrodden region of my mind,
  Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
            Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
  Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees
            Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
  And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
            The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 58-63

  And in the midst of this wide quietness
  A rosy sanctuary will I dress
  With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,
            With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
  With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,
            Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 64-67

  And there shall be for thee all soft delight
            That shadowy thought can win,
  A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
            To let the warm Love in!

  

  

  

  

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“Ode to Psyche” Symbols

• 

  Psyche and Eros

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• 

  Flowers and Plants

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• 

  The Casement

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“Ode to Psyche” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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“Ode to Psyche” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Tuneless Numbers
• Wrung
• Enforcement
• Remembrance
• Thy, Thine, Thou, Thee
• Soft-Conched Ear
• Psyche
• Thoughtlessly
• Couched
• Brooklet
• Scarce Espied
• 'Mid
• Fragrant-Eyed
• Tyrian
• Bedded
• Pinions
• Bade Adieu
• Disjoined
• Eye-Dawn
• Aurorean
• The Winged Boy
• Olympus
• Hierarchy
• Fairer
• Phoebe's Sapphire-Region'd Star
• Vesper
• Amorous
• Virgin-Choir
• Make Delicious Moan
• Lute
• Incense Sweet From Chain-Swung Censer Teeming
• Oracle
• Pale-Mouth'd Prophet
• Antique
• Fond
• Lyre
• Pieties
• Lucent Fans
• Olympians
• Fane
• Fledge
• Zephyrs
• Dryads
• Sanctuary
• Wreath'd Trellis
• Fancy
• A Casement Ope at Night

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Ode to Psyche”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Ode to Psyche” Speaker

“Ode to Psyche” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Ode to Psyche”

More “Ode to Psyche” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Reading of the Poem — Hear the poem performed aloud by an actor in character as Keats.

  • The Keats Letters Project — Visit the Keats Letters Project, where you can read scholars' responses to Keats's touching, funny letters. Keats often discussed his poetry in his letters—and made some pretty good jokes.

  • A Short Essay on the Poem — Read scholar Carol Rumens's reflection on "Ode to Psyche."

  • A Brief Biography — Read the Poetry Foundation's short biography of Keats, and find links to more of his poetry.

  • The Keats-Shelley Museum — Visit the website of the Keats-Shelley Museum in Rome (housed in the apartment where Keats died) to find more information about Keats's life and work.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by John Keats

  • A thing of beauty is a joy for ever (from Endymion)

  • Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art

  • In drear nighted December

  • La Belle Dame sans Merci

  • Lamia

  • Ode on a Grecian Urn

  • Ode on Indolence

  • Ode on Melancholy

  • Ode to a Nightingale

  • On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

  • On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

  • On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

  • On the Grasshopper and Cricket

  • On the Sea

  • The Eve of St. Agnes

  • This living hand, now warm and capable

  • To Autumn

  • To Sleep

  • When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be