Penny Dreadfuls, 1812 · page 30 of 258
Psyche, and other poems — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running verse poetry (page 12 of what appears to be a longer work). The text describes a romantic and emotional scene: a woman gives a man a kiss but then, driven by anger, pushes him away and sends him off to seek suffering. The passage then shifts to describe an idealized, paradise-like island landscape adorned with eternal spring, beautiful natural features, and personified allegorical figures (Pleasure, the Hours, Hope, Joys) inhabiting fertile lawns and glades. The verse employs elaborate Romantic-era imagery and diction typical of early-nineteenth-century popular literature.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
12 Then, with sweet ptessure of her rosy lip, A kiss she gave bathed in ambrosial dew ; The thrilling joy he would for ever sip, And his moist eyes in ecstacy imbrue, But she whose soul still angry cares pursue, Snatched from the soft caress her glowing charms ; Her vengeful will she then enforced anew, As she in haste dismissed him from her arms, | The cruel draught to seek of anguish and alarms. ‘Mid the blue waves by circling seas embraced | A chosen spot of fairest land was seen; . | For there with favouring hand had nature placed All that could lovely make the varied scene : | ternal Spring there spread her mantle green; There high surrounding hills deep-wooded rose O’er placid lakes ; while marble rocks between The fragrant shrubs their pointed heads disclose, _ And baimy breathes each gale which o’er the island blows. ’ } Pleasure had called the fertile lawns her own, | And thickly strewed them with her choicest flowers ; Amid the quiet glade her golden throne Bright shone with lustre through o’erarching bowers: There her fair train, the ever downy Hours, Sport on light wing with the young Joys entwined ; While Hope delighted from her full lap showers Blossoms, whose fragrance can the ravished mind Inebriate with dreams of rapture unconfined. | Comicbooks:com