Ode to Psyche

Psyche is portrayed as the underdog of the gods. After the speaker, aided by their creative imagination, stumbles upon Cupid and Psyche embracing on the grass, they become enamored of Psyche and her story. They believe that she, as a late arrival to the pantheon of Greek gods, has not received the honor to which she is due. This seems like a distressing oversight, an inadequate response to her status, since they declare her to be the “loveliest vision” (Line 24) of them all. She should not be neglected merely because she arrived late, when the hierarchy of gods and goddesses was already established.

Keats’s speaker devotes Stanza 2 entirely to a lament about the many ways in which Psyche was sold short. It is ironic, in their view, that even though she is the loveliest of the gods, none of the usual religious shrines were built for her, and she was offered none of the customary practices of worship. The speaker lists them exhaustively, in the final eight lines of the stanza—everything from temple, altar, and choir, to incense, grove, and oracle, and “pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming” (Line 35).

The speaker finds a remedy: They will be the prophet and priest that she never had.