Lamia by John Keats

 "Lamia" is a narrative poem written by English poet John Keats which was published in 1820.

The poem was written in 1819, soon after "La belle dame sans merci" and his odes on Melancholy, on Indolence, to a Grecian Urn and to a Nightingale, and just before "Ode to Autumn". The poem 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.