Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine— Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine— Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade." in the context of "John Keats, from Lamia (1820), pt. 2. "Philosophy" here means "natural philosophy", i.e. science. The sentiment is challenged by Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.