A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

As a martyr walks to death, so did she walk. And when the yellow light
fell upon the form of him who lay there, still she gazed steadily.
And, lo, before her she saw the form of him who had ever been the
ideal of her dreams. Love himself, incarnate Love, perfect in beauty
and in all else was he whom her sisters had told her was a monster--he,
of whom the oracle had said that neither gods nor men could resist him.
For a moment of perfect happiness she gazed upon his beauty. Then he
turned in his sleep, and smiled, and stretched out his arms to find the
one of his love. And Psyche started, and, starting, shook the lamp; and
from it fell a drop of burning oil on the white shoulder of Eros. At once
he awoke, and with piteous, pitying eyes looked in those of Psyche.
And when he spoke, his words were like daggers that pierced deep into
her soul. He told her all that had been, all that might have been. Had
she only had faith and patience to wait, an immortal life should have
been hers.
"Farewell! though I, a god, can never know How thou canst lose thy
pain, yet time will go Over thine head, and thou mayst mingle yet The
bitter and the sweet, nor quite forget, Nor quite remember, till these
things shall seem The wavering memory of a lovely dream."
William Morris.
He left her alone then, with her despair, and as the slow hours dragged
by, Psyche, as she awaited the dawn, felt that in her heart no sun could
ever rise again. When day came at last, she felt she could no longer
endure to stay in the palace where everything spoke to her of the
infinite tenderness of a lost love. Through the night a storm had raged,
and even with the day there came no calm. And Psyche, weary and chill,
wandered away from the place of her happiness, onward and ever on,
until she stood on the bank of a swift-flowing river. For a little she
stayed her steps and listened to the sound of its wash against the rocks
and tree roots as it hurried past, and to her as she waited came the
thought that here had she found a means by which to end her woe.
"I have lost my Love," she moaned. "What is Life to me any longer!
Come to me then, O Death!"