185 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? meadow Spread a green kirtle0 to the minstrelsy: gown A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore
190 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;
2. I.e., the yellow of sulfur (thrown up by a vol-4. Cenchrea (Keats's 'Cenchreas') was a harbor cano) replaced her former silvery moon color. of Corinth, in southern Greece. 3. Embroidery, interwoven pattern. 'Mail': inter-5. Felt intense excitement. linked rings, as in a coat of armor.
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LAMIA / 915
Define their pettish limits, and estrange Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;6
195 Intrigue with the specious chaos,7 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,0 unspoiled And kept his rosy terms8 in idle languishment.
200 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,0 strange or magnificent: wished
205 How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went; Whether to faint Elysium,9 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,
210 Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine; Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine0 palatial Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line.2 And sometimes into cities she would send Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;
215 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.
220 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
225 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; 230 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 235 His phantasy was lost, where reason fades, In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades.3
6. I.e., of knowledgeable ('sciential') brain to disentangle ('unperplex') bliss from its closely related pain, to define their quarreled-over ('pettish') limits, and to separate out ('estrange') their points of contact and the swift changes of each condition into its opposite. Cf. Keats's 'Ode on Melancholy,' lines 21-26 (p. 907). 7. I.e.. turn to her own artful purpose the seeming ('specious') chaos. 8. 'l'he terms spent studying in 'Cupid's college.' 9. Region inhabited by the virtuous after death. 1. Sea nymphs, of whom Thetis (line 208, the mother of Achilles) was one. 2. I.e., columns made by Mulciber (Vulcan, god of fire and metalworking) gleam in long lines around open courts (piazzas). 3. I.e., he was absorbed in musing about the obscurities of Plato's philosophy.
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91 6 / JOHN KEATS
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near? Close to her passing, in indifference drear, His silent sandals swept the mossy green;
240 So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen She stood: he pass'd, shut up in mysteries, His mind wrapp'd like his mantle, while her eyes Follow'd his steps, and her neck regal white Turn'd?syllabling thus, 'Ah, Lycius bright,
245 And will you leave me on the hills alone? Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown.' He did; not with cold wonder fearingly, But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;4 For so delicious were the words she sung,
250 It seem'd he had lov'd them a whole summer long: And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up, Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup, And still the cup was full,?while he, afraid Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid
255 Due adoration, thus began to adore; Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure: 'Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee! For pity do not this sad heart belie5?
260 Even as thou vanishest so I shall die. Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay! To thy far wishes will thy streams obey: Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain, Alone they can drink up the morning rain:
265 Though a descended Pleiad,6 will not one Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine? So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade
270 Thy memory will waste me to a shade:? For pity do not melt!'?'If I should stay,' Said Lamia, 'here, upon this floor of clay, And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough, What canst thou say or do of charm enough
275 To dull the nice7 remembrance of my home? Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam Over these hills and vales, where no joy is,? Empty of immortality and bliss! Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know
280 That finer spirits cannot breathe below In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth, What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe My essence? What serener palaces, Where I may all my many senses please,
4. As Orpheus looked at Eurydice in Hades. 6. One of the seven sisters composing the con- Orpheus was allowed by Pluto to lead Eurydice stellation Pleiades. The lines that follow allude to back to Earth on condition that he not look back the ancient belief that the planets traveled inside at her, but he could not resist doing so and hence crystalline spheres whose movements produced lost her once more. heavenly music. 5. Be false to. 7. Detailed, minutely accurate.
