"So," said the first, "this palace without folk, These wonders done with none to strike a stroke. This singing in the air, and no one seen, These gifts too wonderful for any queen, The trance wherein we both were wrapt away, And set down by her golden house to-day-- --These are the deeds of gods, and not of men; And fortunate the day was to her, when Weeping she left the house where we were born, And all men deemed her shamed and most forlorn." Then said the other, reddening in her rage, "She is the luckiest one of all this age; And yet she might have told us of her case, What god it is that dwelleth in the place, Nor sent us forth like beggars from her gate. And beggarly, O sister, is our fate, Whose husbands wring from miserable hinds What the first battle scatters to the winds; While she to us whom from her door she drives And makes of no account or honour, gives Such wonderful and priceless gifts as these, Fit to bedeck the limbs of goddesses! And yet who knows but she may get a fall? The strongest tower has not the highest wall, Think well of this, when you sit safe at home By this unto the river were they come, Where waited Zephyrus unseen, who cast A languor over them that quickly passed Into deep sleep, and on the grass they sank; Then straightway did he lift them from the bank, And quickly each in her fair house set down, Then flew aloft above the sleeping town. Long in their homes they brooded over this, And how that Psyche nigh a goddess is; While all folk deemed that she quite lost had been For nought they said of all that they had seen.
But now that night when she, with many a kiss, Had told their coming, and of that and this That happed, he said, "These things, O Love, are well; Glad am I that no evil thing befell. And yet, between thy father's house and me Must thou choose now; then either royally Shalt thou go home, and wed some king at last, And have no harm for all that here has passed; Or else, my love, bear as thy brave heart may, This loneliness in hope of that fair day, Which, by my head, shall come to thee; and then Shalt thou be glorious to the sons of men, And by my side shalt sit in such estate That in all time all men shall sing thy fate." But with that word such love through her he breathed, That round about him her fair arms she wreathed; And so with loving passed the night away, And with fresh hope came on the fresh May-day. And so passed many a day and many a night. And weariness was balanced with delight, And into such a mind was Psyche brought, That little of her father's house she thought, But ever of the happy day to come When she should go unto her promised home.