Lamia | Page 4

oaths, fair God!"?"I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod,?And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!"?Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.?Then thus again the brilliance feminine:?"Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,?Free as the air, invisibly, she strays?About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days?She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet?Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;?From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green,?She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:?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!"?Then, once again, the charmed God began?An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran?Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.?Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head,?Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said,?"I was a woman, let me have once more?A woman's shape, and charming as before.?I love a youth of Corinth - O the bliss!?Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is.?Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,?And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now."?The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,?She breath'd upon his eyes, and swift was seen?Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.?It was no dream; or say a dream it was,?Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass?Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.?One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem?Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd;?Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd?To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm,?Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.?So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent,?Full of adoring tears and blandishment,?And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,?Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain?Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower?That faints into itself at evening hour:?But the 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 Peraean 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?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