The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies - John Keats

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smooth-lipp’d serpent, surely high inspired!

      Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,

      Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,

      Telling me only where my nymph is fled, —

      Where she doth breathe!” “Bright planet, thou hast said,”

      Return’d the snake, “but seal with oaths, fair God!”

      “I swear,” said Hermes, “by my serpent rod,

      And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!”

      Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.

      Then thus again the brilliance feminine:

      “Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,

      Free as the air, invisibly, she strays

      About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days

      She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet

      Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;

      From weary tendrils, and bow’d branches green,

      She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:

      And by my power is her beauty veil’d

      To keep it unaffronted, unassail’d

      By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,

      Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear’d Silenus’ sighs.

      Pale grew her immortality, for woe

      Of all these lovers, and she grieved so

      I took compassion on her, bade her steep

      Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep

      Her loveliness invisible, yet free

      To wander as she loves, in liberty.

      Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,

      If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!”

      Then, once again, the charmed God began

      An oath, and through the serpent’s ears it ran

      Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.

      Ravish’d, she lifted her Circean head,

      Blush’d a live damask, and swift-lisping said,

      “I was a woman, let me have once more

      A woman’s shape, and charming as before.

      I love a youth of Corinth – O the bliss!

      Give me my woman’s form, and place me where he is.

      Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,

      And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now.”

      The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,

      She breath’d upon his eyes, and swift was seen

      Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.

      It was no dream; or say a dream it was,

      Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass

      Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.

      One warm, flush’d moment, hovering, it might seem

      Dash’d by the wood-nymph’s beauty, so he burn’d;

      Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn’d

      To the swoon’d serpent, and with languid arm,

      Delicate, 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

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