e shows a very much greater sense of proportion and
power of selection than in his earlier work. There is, as it were, more
light and shade.

Thus we find that whenever the occasion demands it his style rises to
supreme force and beauty. The metamorphosis of the serpent, the entry
of Lamia and Lycius into Corinth, the building by Lamia of the Fairy
Hall, and her final withering under the eye of Apollonius--these are the
most important points in the story, and the passages in which they are
described are also the most striking in the poem.

The allegorical meaning of the story seems to be, that it is fatal to
attempt to separate the sensuous and emotional life from the life of
reason. Philosophy alone is cold and destructive, but the pleasures of
the senses alone are unreal and unsatisfying. The man who attempts such
a divorce between the two parts of his nature will fail miserably as did
Lycius, who, unable permanently to exclude reason, was compelled to face
the death of his illusions, and could not, himself, survive them.

Of the poem Keats himself says, writing to his brother in September,
1819: 'I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed
lately, called _Lamia_, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in
it that must take hold of people some way; give them either pleasant or
unpleasant sensation--what they want is a sensation of some sort.' But
to the greatest of Keats's critics, Charles Lamb, the poem appealed
somewhat differently, for he writes, 'More exuberantly rich in imagery
and painting [than _Isabella_] is the story of _Lamia_. It is of as
gorgeous stuff as ever romance was composed of,' and, after enumerating
the most striking pictures in the poem, he adds, '[these] are all that
fairy-land can do for us.' _Lamia_ struck his imagination, but his heart
was given to _Isabella_.

NOTES ON LAMIA.

PART I.

PAGE 3. ll. 1-6. _before the faery broods . . . lawns_, i.e. before
mediaeval fairy-lore had superseded classical mythology.

l. 2. _Satyr_, a horned and goat-legged demi-god of the woods.

l. 5. _Dryads_, wood-nymphs, who lived in trees. The life of each
terminated with that of the tree over which she presided. Cf. Landor's
'Hamadryad'.

l. 5. _Fauns._ The Roman name corresponding to the Greek Satyr.

l. 7. _Hermes_, or Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. He is always
represented with winged shoes, a winged helmet, and a winged staff,
bound about with living serpents.