Keats: Poems Published in 1820
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceas'd, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, 40
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said:
"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea? 50
Or hath that antique mien and robed form
Mov'd in these vales invisible till now?
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced
The rustle of those ample skirts about
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass'd.
Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
And their eternal calm, and all that face, 60
Or I have dream'd."--"Yes," said the supreme shape,
"Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast
Unwearied ear of the whole universe
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange
That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth,
What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs 70
To one who in this lonely isle hath been
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
From the young day when first thy infant hand
Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
Could bend that bow heroic to all times.
Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power
Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
Of loveliness new born."--Apollo then,
With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, 80
Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat
Throbb'd with the syllables.--"Mnemosyne!
Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how;
Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?
Why should I strive to show what from thy lips
Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, 90
Like one who once had wings.--O why should I
Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air
Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
Are there not other regions than this isle?
What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
To any one particular beauteous star, 100
And I will flit into it with my lyre,
And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss.
I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves! 110
Mute thou remainest--Mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."--Thus the God, 120
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd: 130
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.--At length
Apollo shriek'd;--and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial * * * * *
* * * * * * *
THE END.
NOTE.
PAGE 184, l. 310. over-foolish, Giant-Gods? _MS._: over-foolish giant,
Gods? _1820._
NOTES.
ADVERTISEMENT.
PAGE 2. See Introduction to _Hyperion_, p. 245.
INTRODUCTION TO LAMIA.
_Lamia_, like _Endymion_, is written in the heroic couplet, but the
difference in style is very marked. The influence of Dryden's
narrative-poems (his translations from Boccaccio and Chaucer) is clearly
traceable in the metre, style, and construction of the later poem. Like
Dryden, Keats now makes frequent use of the Alexandrine, or 6-foot line,
and of the triplet. He has also restrained the exuberance of his
language and gained force, whilst in imaginative power and felicity of
diction he surpasses anything of which Dryden was capable. The flaws in
his style are mainly due to carelessness in the rimes and some
questionable coining of words. He also occasionally lapses into the
vulgarity and triviality which marred certain of his early poems.
The best he gained from his study of Dryden's _Fables_, a debt perhaps
to Chaucer rather than to Dryden, was a notable advance in constructive
power. In _Lamia_ he shows a very much greater sense of proportion and
power of selection than in his earlier work. There is, as it were, more
light and shade.
Thus we find that whenever the occasion demands it his style rises to
supreme force and beauty. The metamorphosis of the serpent, the entry
of Lamia and Lycius into Corinth, the building by Lamia of the Fairy
Hall, and her final withering under the eye of Apollonius--these are the
most important points in the story, and the passages in which they are
described are also the most striking in the poem.
The allegorical meaning of the story seems to be, that it is fatal to
attempt to separate the sensuous and emotional life from the life of
reason. Philosophy alone is cold and destructive, but the pleasures of
the senses alone are unreal and unsatisfying. The man who attempts such
a divorce between the two parts of his nature will fail miserably as did
Lycius, who, unable permanently to exclude reason, was compelled to face
the death of his illusions, and could not, himself, survive them.
Of the poem Keats himself says, writing to his brother in September,
1819: 'I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed
lately, called _Lamia_, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in
it that must take hold of people some way; give them either pleasant or
unpleasant sensation--what they want is a sensation of some sort.' But
to the greatest of Keats's critics, Charles Lamb, the poem appealed
somewhat differently, for he writes, 'More exuberantly rich in imagery
and painting [than _Isabella_] is the story of _Lamia_. It is of as
gorgeous stuff as ever romance was composed of,' and, after enumerating
the most striking pictures in the poem, he adds, '[these] are all that
fairy-land can do for us.' _Lamia_ struck his imagination, but his heart
was given to _Isabella_.
NOTES ON LAMIA.
PART I.
PAGE 3. ll. 1-6. _before the faery broods . . . lawns_, i.e. before
mediaeval fairy-lore had superseded classical mythology.
l. 2. _Satyr_, a horned and goat-legged demi-god of the woods.
l. 5. _Dryads_, wood-nymphs, who lived in trees. The life of each
terminated with that of the tree over which she presided. Cf. Landor's
'Hamadryad'.
l. 5. _Fauns._ The Roman name corresponding to the Greek Satyr.
l. 7. _Hermes_, or Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. He is always
represented with winged shoes, a winged helmet, and a winged staff,
bound about with living serpents.
PAGE 4. l. 15. _Tritons_, sea-gods, half-man, half-fish. Cf. Wordsworth,
'Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn' (Sonnet--'The World is too
much with us').
l. 19. _unknown to any Muse_, beyond the imagination of any poet.
PAGE 5. l. 28. _passion new._ He has often before been to earth on
similar errands. Cf. _ever-smitten_, l. 7, also ll. 80-93.
l. 42. _dove-footed._ Cf. note on l. 7.
PAGE 6. l. 46. _cirque-couchant_, lying twisted into a circle. Cf.
_wreathed tomb_, l. 38.
l. 47. _gordian_, knotted, from the famous knot in the harness of
Gordius, King of Phrygia, which only the conqueror of the world was to
be able to untie. Alexander cut it with his sword. Cf. _Henry V_, I. i.
46.
l. 58. _Ariadne's tiar._ Ariadne was a nymph beloved of Bacchus, the god
of wine. He gave her a crown of seven stars, which, after her death, was
made into a constellation. Keats has, no doubt, in his mind Titian's
picture of Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery. Cf. _Ode to
Sorrow_, _Endymion_.
PAGE 7. l. 63. _As Proserpine . . . air._ Proserpine, gathering flowers
in the Vale of Enna, in Sicily, was carried off by Pluto, the king of
the underworld, to be his queen. Cf. _Winter's Tale_, IV. iii, and
_Paradise Lost_, iv. 268, known to be a favourite passage with Keats.
l. 75. _his throbbing . . . moan._ Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 81.
l. 77. _as morning breaks_, the freshness and splendour of the youthful
god.
PAGE 8. l. 78. _Phoebean dart_, a ray of the sun, Phoebus being the god
of the sun.
l. 80. _Too gentle Hermes._ Cf. l. 28 and note.
l. 81. _not delay'd_: classical construction. See Introduction to
Hyperion.
_Star of Lethe._ Hermes is so called because he had to lead the souls of
the dead to Hades, where was Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Lamb
comments: '. . . Hermes, the _Star of Lethe_, as he is called by one of
those prodigal phrases which Mr. Keats abounds in, which are each a poem
in a word, and which in this instance lays open to us at once, like a
picture, all the dim regions and their habitants, and the sudden coming
of a celestial among them.'
l. 91. The line dances along like a leaf before the wind.
l. 92. Miltonic construction and phraseology.
PAGE 9. l. 98. _weary tendrils_, tired with holding up the boughs, heavy
with fruit.
l. 103. _Silenus_, the nurse and teacher of Bacchus--a demigod of the
woods.
PAGE 10. l. 115. _Circean._ Circe was the great enchantress who turned
the followers of Ulysses into swine. Cf. _Comus_, ll. 46-54, and
_Odyssey_, x.
PAGE 11. l. 132. _swoon'd serpent._ Evidently, in the exercise of her
magic, power had gone out of her.
l. 133. _lythe_, quick-acting.
_Caducean charm._ Caduceus was the name of Hermes' staff of wondrous
powers, the touch of which, evidently, was powerful to give the serpent
human form.
l. 136. _like a moon in wane._ Cf. the picture of Cynthia, _Endymion_,
iii. 72 sq.
l. 138. _like a flower . . . hour._ Perhaps a reminiscence of Milton's
'at shut of evening flowers.' _Paradise Lost_, ix. 278.
PAGE 12. l. 148. _besprent_, sprinkled.
l. 158. _brede_, embroidery. Cf. _Ode on a Grecian Urn_, v. 1.
PAGE 13. l. 178. _rack._ Cf. _The Tempest_, IV. i. 156, 'leave not a
rack behind.' _Hyperion_, i. 302, note.