In the early summer of 1819 Keats felt the pressure of want of money and determined to go into the country, where he could live cheaply, and devote himself to writing. He went accordingly to Shanklin, Isle of Wight, and wrote thence to Reynolds, July 12, ‘I have finished the Act [the first of Otho the Great], and in the interval of beginning the 2nd have proceeded pretty well with Lamia, finishing the first part

which consists of about 400 lines. I have great hope of success [in this enterprise of maintenance], because I make use of my judgment more deliberately than I have yet done.' He continued to work at Lamia in connection with the tragedy, completing it in August at Winchester. It formed the leading poem in the volume Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes and other Poems, published in 1820. Keats's own judgment of it is in his words: 'I am certain there is that sort of fire in it which must take hold of people in some way—give them either pleasant or unpleasant association.' He found the germ of the story in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, where it is credited to Philostratus. The passage will be found in the Notes. Lord Houghton says, on the authority of Brown, that Keats wrote the poem after much study of Dryden's versification.

PART I

UPON a time, before the faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,

And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay, Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey:

'Fair Hermes! crown'd with feathers, fluttering light,

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I had a splendid dream of thee last night:
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,
Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,
The only sad one; for thou didst not hear
The soft, lute - finger'd Muses chanting
clear,

Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,
Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long
melodious moan.

I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes, Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,

And, swiftly as a bright Phœbean dart, Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou

From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green,

She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes un

seen:

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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!'

III

Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent, And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.

Why this fair creature chose so fairily By the wayside to linger, we shall see; 201 But first 't is fit to tell how she could muse And dream, when in the serpent prisonhouse,

Of all she list, strange or magnificent: How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went;

Whether to faint Elysium, or where Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair

Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair;

Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,

Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous

And sometimes into cities she would send Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend; And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,

She saw the young Corinthian Lycius Charioting foremost in the envious race, Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,

And fell into a swooning love of him. 219 Now on the moth-time of that evening dim He would return that way, as well she knew,

To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew

The eastern soft wind, and his galley now Grated the quay-stones with her brazen

prow

In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle
Fresh anchor'd; whither he had been awhile
To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there
Waits with high marble doors for blood

and incense rare.

Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire;