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

      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,

      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?

      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:

      More, more he gaz’d: his human senses reel:

      Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;

      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 myrtle sicken’d in a thousand wreaths.

      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

      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

      The deep-recessed vision: – all was blight;

      Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.

      “Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man!

      Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban

      Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images

      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,

      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!

      My sweet bride withers at their potency.”

      “Fool!” said the sophist, in an undertone

      Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan

      From Lycius answer’d, as heart-struck and lost,

      He sank supine beside the aching ghost.

      “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,

      Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,

      Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well

      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!

      “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 —

      Supported him – no pulse, or breath they found,

      And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.

      Isabella