Penny Dreadfuls, 1812 · page 25 of 258
Psyche, and other poems — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a running prose page from what appears to be a narrative poem. It presents "Canto I" of a work featuring a character named "Fair Psyche" wandering through forests in a state of emotional distress—wearied, sorrowful, and repenting a "fatal error." The verse describes her lonely lamentation and then shifts to depict a sheltered woodland bower with dense vegetation and fragrant shrubs that block out the sun's rays. The page is printed in double-column format typical of Victorian serialized fiction, with a signature mark "B 2" at the bottom indicating this is sheet B, leaf 2 of the printing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- i oe) ‘ CANTO I. ves - =s- Se MUCH wearied with her long and dreary way, And now with toil and sorrow weli nigh spent, Of sad regret and wasting grief the prey, Fair Psyche through untrodden forests went, To lone shades uttering oft a vain lament. And oft in hopeless silence sighing deep, As she her fatal error did repent, While dear remembrance bade her ever weep, And her pale cheek in ceaseless showers of sorrow steep. >. *Mid the thick covert of that woodland shade, A flowery bank there lay undressed by art, But of the mossy turf spontaneous made ; Here the young branches shot their arms athwart, And wove the bower so thick in every part, That the fierce beams of Phoebus glancing strong _ Could never through the leaves their fury dart ; But the sweet creeping shrubs that round it throng, Their loving fragrance mix, and trail their flowers along. B2 we conmmicbooks.conn