XXVIII. Stol'n to this paradise and so entranc'd, Which when he heard, that minute did he bless, And over the hush'd carpet silent stept, And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where lo! how fast she slept. ΧΧΙΧ Then, by the bedside, where the faded moon And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep These delicates he heap'd with glowing hand Filling the chilly room with perfume light. XXXII. Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm By the dusk curtains;-'twas a midnight charm The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam; XXXIII. Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,- Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth sculptured stone XXXIV. Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, XXXV. "Ah Porphyro!" said she, "but even now Thy voice was a sweet tremble in mine ear, Made tunable with every sweetest vow; And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear; How chang'd thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear !Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, Those looks immortal, those complainings dear; Oh! leave me not in this eternal wo, For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go " XXXVI. Beyond a mortal man impassion'd far15 Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose : Blendeth its odors with the violet, Solution sweet. Meantime the frost wind blows XXXVII. "T is dark; quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet: "This is no dream; my bride, my Madeline !" "Tis dark the icèd gusts still rave and beat. "No dream, alas! alas! and wo is mine; Porphyro will leave me here to rave and pine; Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring! I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;— A dove, forlorn and lost, with sick unprunèd wing." XXXVIII. "My Madeline, sweet dreamer! lovely bride! Thy beauty's shield, heart-shap'd, and vermeil-dyed ? 10 Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest, ΧΧΧΙΧ. "Hark! 't is an elfin storm from faery land, For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." XL. She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each door; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.17 XLI. They glide like phantoms into the wide hall; With a huge empty flagon by his side; The watchful blood-hound rose, and shook his hide, By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide: The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones: XLII. And they are gone; ay, ages long ago, For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold. 1" The Eve of St. Agnes."-St. Agnes was a Roman virgin, who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Dioclesian. Her parents, a few days after her decease, are said to have had a vision of her, surrounded by angels and attended by a white lamb, which afterwards became sacred to her. In the Catholic Church, formerly, the nuns used to bring a couple of lambs to her altar during mass. The superstition is (for I believe it is still to be found), that, by taking certain measures of divination, damsels may get a sight of their future husbands in a dream. The ordinary process seems to have been by fasting. Aubrey (as quoted in "Brand's Popular Antiquities") mentions another, which is, to take a row of pins, and pull them out one by one, saying a Paternoster; after which, upon going to bed, the dream is sure to ensue. Brand quotes Ben Jonson : And on sweet St. Agnes' night, Pleas'd you with the promis'd sight, Which an empty dream discovers 2" The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold."-Could he have seected an image more warm and comfortable in itself, and, therefore, better contradicted by the season? We feel the plump, feathery bird, in his nook, shivering in spite of his natu ral household warmth, and staring out at the strange weather. The hare cringing through the chill grass is very piteous, and the "silent flock" very patient; and how quiet and gentle, as well as wintry, are all these circumstances, and fit to open a quiet and gentle poem! The breath of the pilgrim, likened to "pious incense," completes them, and is a simile in admirable "keeping," as the painters call it; that is to say, is thoroughly harmonious with itself and all that is going on. The breath of the pilgrim is visible, so is that of a censer; the censer, after its fashion, may be said to pray; and its breath, like the pilgrim's, ascends to heaven. Young students of poetry may, in this image alone, see what imagination is, under one of its most poetical forms, and how thoroughly it "tells." There is no part of it unfitting. It is not applicable in one point, and the reverse in another. 3 Past the sweet Virgin's picture," &c.-What a complete feeling of winter-time is in this stanza, together with an intimation of those Catholic elegances, of which we are to have more in the poem! 4" To think how they may ache," &c.-The germ of the thought, or something like it, is in Dante, where he speaks of the figures that perform the part of sustaining columns in architecture. Keats had read Dante in Mr. Cary's translation, for which he had a great respect. He began to read him afterwards in Italian, which language he was mastering with surprising quickness. A friend of ours has a copy of Ariosto containing admiring marks of his pen. But the same thought may have struck one poet as well as another. Perhaps there are few that have not felt something like it on seeing the figures upon tombs. Here, however, for the first time, we believe, in English poetry, it is expressed, and with what feeling and elegance! Most wintry |