Selected Poems and Letters. John Keats

put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.

      So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent

      Full of adoring tears and blandishment,

      And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,

      Faded before him, cower’d, nor could restrain

      Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower

      That faints into itself at evening hour:

      But the God fostering her chilled hand,

      She felt the warmth, her eyelids open’d bland,

      And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,

      Bloom’d, and gave up her honey to the lees.

      Into the green-recessed woods they flew;

      Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.

      Left to herself, the serpent now began

      To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,

      Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent,

      Wither’d at dew so sweet and virulent;

      Her eyes in torture fix’d, and anguish drear,

      Hot, glaz’d, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,

      Flash’d phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.

      The colours all inflam’d throughout her train,

      She writh’d about, convuls’d with scarlet pain:

      A deep volcanian yellow took the place

      Of all her milder-mooned body’s grace;

      And, as the lava ravishes the mead,

      Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;

      Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,

      Eclips’d her crescents, and lick’d up her stars:

      So that, in moments few, she was undrest

      Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,

      And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,

      Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.

      Still shone her crown; that vanish’d, also she

      Melted and disappear’d as suddenly;

      And in the air, her new voice luting soft,

      Cried, “Lycius! gentle Lycius!” – Borne aloft

      With the bright mists about the mountains hoar

      These words dissolv’d: Crete’s forests heard no more.

      Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,

      A full-born beauty new and exquisite?

      She fled into that valley they pass o’er

      Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas’ shore;

      And rested at the foot of those wild hills,

      The rugged founts of the Peræan rills,

      And of that other ridge whose barren back

      Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,

      South-westward to Cleone. There she stood

      About a young bird’s flutter from a wood,

      Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,

      By a clear pool, wherein she passioned

      To see herself escap’d from so sore ills,

      While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.

      Ah, happy Lycius! – for she was a maid

      More beautiful than ever twisted braid,

      Or sigh’d, or blush’d, or on spring-flowered lea

      Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:

      A virgin purest lipp’d, yet in the lore

      Of love deep learned to the red heart’s core:

      Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain

      To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;

      Define their pettish limits, and estrange

      Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;

      Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart

      Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;

      As though in Cupid’s college she had spent

      Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,

      And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.

      Why this fair creature chose so fairily

      By the wayside to linger, we shall see;

      But first ’tis fit to tell how she could muse

      And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,

      Of all she list, strange or magnificent:

      How, ever, where she will’d, her spirit went;

      Whether to faint Elysium, or where

      Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair

      Wind into Thetis’ bower by many a pearly stair;

      Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,

      Stretch’d out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine;

      Or where in Pluto’s gardens palatine

      Mulciber’s columns gleam in far piazzian line.

      And sometimes into cities she would send

      Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;

      And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,

      She saw the young Corinthian Lycius

      Charioting foremost in the envious race,

      Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,

      And fell into a swooning love of him.

      Now on the moth-time of that evening dim

      He would return that way, as well she knew,

      To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew

      The eastern soft wind, and his galley now

      Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow

      In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle

      Fresh anchor’d; whither he had been awhile

      To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there

      Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare.

      Jove heard his vows, and better’d his desire;

      For by some freakful chance he made retire

      From his companions, and set forth to walk,

      Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:

      Over the solitary hills he fared,

      Thoughtless at first, but ere eve’s star appeared

      His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,

      In the calm’d twilight of Platonic shades.

      Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near –

      Close to her passing, in indifference drear,

      His silent sandals