Chapter 5

Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace, Amazed were those Titans utterly. O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes; For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire: A solitary sorrow best befits Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10 And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills; Let the red wine within the goblet boil, Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells, On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn 20 Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris'd. Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green, And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech, In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade: Apollo is once more the golden theme! Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? 30 Together had he left his mother fair And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower, 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.