Lamia
1820
A serpent woman begs Hermes for the gift of human form, desperate to win the love of the mortal Lycius. He grants her wish, and she becomes a woman of devastating beauty. What follows is a love story so exquisite it seems to transcend the boundaries between mortal and divine, set in a palace of enchantment where the couple lives suspended in blissful illusion. But the philosopher Apollonius arrives with the cold clarity of reason, and with a single glance destroys everything. Lamia returns to her serpent shape, Lycius dies of heartbreak, and the dream collapses into dust. Keats wrote this poem to argue a dangerous proposition: that there are truths which kill the very things we love, and that some doors, once opened, cannot be closed. It is a lament for the fragility of beauty, a meditation on what is lost when knowledge arrives too soon, and one of the most emotionally devastating works of the Romantic age.
Editions
X-Ray
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”
— John Keats
“Life is but a day;A fragile dew-drop on its perilous wayFrom a tree’s summit.””
— John Keats
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.””
— John Keats
“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art”
— John Keats
“O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,”
— John Keats
“I bade good morrow,And thought to leave her far away behind;But cheerly, cheerly,She loves me dearly;She is so constant to me, and so kind.- ””
— John Keats
“And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.””
— John Keats
“When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!”
— John Keats
“Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!The flower will bloom another year.Weep no more! oh, weep no more!Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!For I was taught in ParadiseTo ease my breast of melodies,”
— John Keats
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68b"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Lamia by John Keats free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68b)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68b][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Lamia by John Keats free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68bCite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Keats, John. Lamia. Lex, lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68b.Keats, J. (1820). Lamia. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68bKeats, John. Lamia. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/lamia-a56d2283-77e6-47ff-9959-8d93f400f68b.
