Lamia (Complete Edition) A Narrative Poem from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets, best known for Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Indolence, Ode to Psyche, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion…

"Lamia" is a narrative poem, that tells how the god Hermes hears of a nymph who is more beautiful than all. Hermes, searching for the nymph, instead comes across a Lamia, trapped in the form of a serpent. She reveals the previously invisible nymph to him and in return he restores her human form. She goes to seek a youth of Corinth, Lycius, while Hermes and his nymph depart together into the woods. The relationship between Lycius and Lamia, however, is destroyed when the sage Apollonius reveals Lamia's true identity at their wedding feast, whereupon she seemingly disappears and Lycius dies of grief. Also, Keats's poem had a deep influence on Edgar Allan Poe's sonnet "To Science."