Penny Dreadfuls, 1812 · page 53 of 258
Psyche, and other poems — page 53: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Victorian Penny Dreadful Page Analysis This is a page of running prose verse (page 85) from what appears to be a serialized melodramatic narrative. The text consists of quoted dialogue—a character (apparently addressing someone named Psyche) urgently warning them about a sorcerer's dangerous enchantments and urging escape. The speaker describes a magical ring that will reveal the magician's monstrous true form during sleep, and instructs Psyche to kill him with a dagger while he slumbers, warning that failure to do so will result in hopelessness and despair. The verse employs Gothic and classical tropes typical of penny dreadful sensation fiction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
s ‘ € é re) * Oh! how shall we declare the fatal truth ? “ How wound thy tender bosom with alarms ? * Tell how the graces of thy blooming youth, “ Thy more than mortal, all-adored charms “* Have lain enamoured in a sorcerer’s arms? Oh, Psyche! seize on this decisive hour, ** Escape the mischief of impending harms! “* Return no more to that enchanted bower, Fly the magician’s arts, and dread his cruel power. * If, yet reluctant to forego thy [a ‘ “ Thy furtive j joys and solitary state, * Our fond officious care thy doubts reprove, “ At least let some precatition. guard thy fate, ** Nor may our warning love be prized too late; This night thyself thou mayest convince thine fe, ‘* Hide but.a lamp, and cautiously await ¢°Till in deep slumber thy magician lies, This ring shall then disclose his foul deformities. ** That monster by the oracle foretold, * Whose cursed spells both gods and men must fear, ** In his own image thou shalt then behold, ** And shuddering hate what now is prized so dear; ‘* Yet fly not then, though loathsome he appear, “« But let this dagger to his breast strike deep ; “ Thy coward terrors then thou must not hear, ** For if with life he rouses from that sleep ** Nought then for thee remains, and we must hopeless weep.” Connicloooks.comnn