John Keats' "Lamia", written in 1819, is a ballad about a young man from Ancient Greece who unwittingly falls in love with a serpent disguised as a beautiful woman. Lycius, the title character, and Lamia, the serpent, carry on a love affair and are engaged to be married; their relationship, however, is destroyed when a cunning old sage reveals Lamia's true identity, whereupon she returns to her serpent state and Lycius dies of grief. The poem explores Keatsian themes such as the tension between reason and sensation, and the illusory but potentially redemptive quality of poetry and love.

golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;        50 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries— So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries, She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,