By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,
240 Scarce saw in all the room another face, Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took Full brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look 'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance,
245 And pledge6 him. The bald-head philosopher Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or stir Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride, Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride. Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
250 As pale it lay upon the rosy couch: Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins; Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart. 'Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start?
255 Know'st thou that man?' Poor Lamia answer'd not. He gaz'd into her eyes, and not a jot Own'd? they the lovelorn piteous appeal: acknmvledged More, more he gaz'd: his human senses reel: Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;
260 There was no recognition in those orbs. 'Lamia!' he cried?and no soft-toned reply. The many heard, and the loud revelry Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes; The myrtle7 sicken'd in a thousand wreaths.
265 By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased; A deadly silence step by step increased, Until it seem'd a horrid presence there, And not a man but felt the terror in his hair. 'Lamia!' he shriek'd; and nothing but the shriek
270 With its sad echo did the silence break. 'Begone, foul dream!' he cried, gazing again In the bride's face, where now no azure vein Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom Misted the cheek; no passion to illume
4. In the sense of 'natural philosophy,' or science. 'had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by Benjamin Haydon tells in his Autobiography how, reducing it to the prismatic colors.' at a hard-drinking and high-spirited dinner party, 5. Gnomes were guardians of mines. Keats had agreed with Charles Lamb (to what 6. Drink a toast to. extent jokingly, it is not clear) that Newton's Optics 7. Sacred to Venus, hence an emblem of love.
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To AUTUMN / 92 5
275 The deep-recessed vision:?all was blight; Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white. 'Shut, shut those juggling8 eyes, thou ruthless man! Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
280 Here represent their shadowy presences, May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn, In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright Of conscience, for their long offended might,
285 For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries, Unlawful magic, and enticing lies. Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch! Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
290 My sweet bride withers at their potency.' 'Fool!' said the sophist, in an under-tone Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost, He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
295 'Fool! Fool!' repeated he, while his eyes still Relented not, nor mov'd; 'from every ill Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day, And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?' Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,
300 Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly, Keen, cruel, perceant,0 stinging: she, as well piercing As her weak hand could any meaning tell, Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so, He look'd and look'd again a level?No! 305 'A Serpent!' echoed he; no sooner said, Than with a frightful scream she vanished: And Lycius' arms were empty of delight, As were his limbs of life, from that same night. On the high couch he lay!?his friends came round? 310 Supported him?no pulse, or breath they found, And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.
July?Aug. 1819 1820
To Autumn1
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless
8. Deceiving, full of trickery. warm?this struck me so much in my Sunday's 1. Two days after this ode was composed, Keats walk that I composed upon it.' For the author's wrote to J. H. Reynolds: 'I never liked stubble revisions while composing 'To Autumn,' see fields so much as now?Aye, better than the chilly 'Poems in Process,' in the appendices to this volgreen of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks ume. warm?in the same way that some pictures look
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92 6 / JOHN KEATS
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
