FLOWERS BY THE POETS. 
27 
By their advice she attempts to destroy him with a razor, and, 
when he was asleep, she approached his couch for this purpose ; but 
there she beheld, instead of a dragon, Love himself. Filled with 
amazement at his beauty, she lean c i in rapture over him, but he 
awoke and flew away. Psyche caught at him as he rose, and was 
raised into the air, but fell ; and as she lay, the god reproached her 
from a Cypress for her breach of faith. The abandoned Psyche 
now roamed through the world in search of Cupid, and is persecuted 
and subjected to numerous trials by Venus. This goddess, bent on 
her destruction, despatches her to Proserpina, with a box in which 
to procure some of her beauty. Psyche accomplishes her mission in 
safety ; but, as she is returning, she ventures to open the box to 
take a portion for herself, and, behold! instead of beauty there issues 
from it a black echalation and Psyche falls to the ground in deep 
slumber from its effects. In this state she is found by Cupid, who 
had escaped by the window of the chamber where he had been con¬ 
fined by his mother : he awakens her with the point of one of his 
arrows, and then proceeds to the palace of Jupiter to interest him 
in his favor. Jupiter takes pity on her and endows her with im¬ 
mortality ; Venus is reconciled, and the marriage of Psyche with 
Cupid takes place amid great joy in the skies. 
When Psyche lost her love, the Lord of Love, 
Weeping, alone she wandered, 
Listless, by every well known field and grove, 
And on her lost love pondered. 
