The Eve of St. Agnes

Verses 22-28

    Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,
    Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
    When Madeline, St Agnes’ charmed maid,
    Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:
    With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
    She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
    To a safe level matting.  Now prepare,
    Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like dove fray’d and fled.

    Out went the taper as she hurried in;
    Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
    She closed the door, she panted, all akin
    To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
    No utter’d syllable, or, woe betide!
    But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
    Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
    As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

    A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
    All garlanded with carven imag’ries
    Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
    And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
    Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
    As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;
    And in the midst, ‘mong thousand heraldries,
    And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

    Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
    And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
    As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
    Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
    And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
    And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
    She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,
    Save wings, for heaven:–Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

    Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
    Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
    Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
    Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
    Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
    Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
    Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
    In fancy, fair St Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

    Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
    In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,
    Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d
    Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
    Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
     Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;
    Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
    Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

    Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,
    Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
    And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced
    To wake into a slumbrous tenderness;
    Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
    And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,
    Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
    And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stept,
And ‘tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!–how fast she slept!