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God fostering her chilled hand, She felt the warmth, her eyelids open’d bland,

       And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,

       Bloom’d, and gave up her honey to the lees.

       Into the green-recessed woods they flew;

       Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.

      Left to herself, the serpent now began

       To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,

       Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent,

       Wither’d at dew so sweet and virulent;

       Her eyes in torture fix’d, and anguish drear, Hot, glaz’d, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,

       Flash’d phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.

       The colours all inflam’d throughout her train,

       She writh’d about, convuls’d with scarlet pain:

       A deep volcanian yellow took the place

       Of all her milder-mooned body’s grace;

       And, as the lava ravishes the mead,

       Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;

       Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,

       Eclips’d her crescents, and lick’d up her stars: So that, in moments few, she was undrest

       Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,

       And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,

       Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.

       Still shone her crown; that vanish’d, also she

       Melted and disappear’d as suddenly;

       And in the air, her new voice luting soft,

       Cried, “Lycius! gentle Lycius!” — Borne aloft

       With the bright mists about the mountains hoar

       These words dissolv’d: Crete’s forests heard no more.

      Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,

       A full-born beauty new and exquisite?

       She fled into that valley they pass o’er

       Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas’ shore;

       And rested at the foot of those wild hills,

       The rugged founts of the Peræan rills,

       And of that other ridge whose barren back

       Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,

       South-westward to Cleone. There she stood

       About a young bird’s flutter from a wood, Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,

       By a clear pool, wherein she passioned

       To see herself escap’d from so sore ills,

       While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.

      Ah, happy Lycius! — for she was a maid

       More beautiful than ever twisted braid,

       Or sigh’d, or blush’d, or on spring-flowered lea

       Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:

       A virgin purest lipp’d, yet in the lore

       Of love deep learned to the red heart’s core: Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain

       To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;

       Define their pettish limits, and estrange

       Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;

       Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart

       Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;

       As though in Cupid’s college she had spent

       Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,

       And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.

      Why this fair creature chose so fairily 0 By the wayside to linger, we shall see;

       But first ’tis fit to tell how she could muse

       And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,

       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 pine; Or where in Pluto’s gardens palatine

       Mulciber’s columns gleam in far piazzian line.

       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.

       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 quaystones 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;

       For by some freakful chance he made retire From his companions, and set forth to walk,

       Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:

       Over the solitary hills he fared,

       Thoughtless at first, but ere eve’s star appeared

       His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,

       In the calm’d twilight of Platonic shades.

       Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near —

       Close to her passing, in indifference drear,

       His silent sandals swept the mossy green;

       So neighbour’d to him, and yet so unseen She stood: he pass’d, shut up in mysteries,

       His mind wrapp’d like his mantle, while her eyes

       Follow’d his steps, and her neck regal white

       Turn’d — syllabling thus, “Ah, Lycius bright,

       And will you leave me on the hills alone?

       Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown.”

       He did; not with cold wonder fearingly,

       But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;

       For so delicious were the words she sung,

       It seem’d he had lov’d them a whole summer long: And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up,

       Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup,

       And still the cup was full, — while he, afraid

       Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid

       Due adoration, thus began to adore;

       Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure:

       “Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see

       Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!

      

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