Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass by-she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,

And back retired—not cooled by high disdain, But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere; She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.

VIII.

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes; Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short: The hallowed hour was near at hand; she sighs Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort Of whisperers in anger or in sport; 'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn, Hoodwinked with faery fancy; all amort, Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn, And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

IX.

So, purposing each moment to retire, She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire For Madeline. Beside the portal doors, Buttressed from moonlight, stands he, and implores All saints to give him sight of Madeline But for one moment in the tedious hours, That he might gaze and worship all unseen; Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss-in sooth, such things have been.

X.

He ventures in: let no buzzed whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords

Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel :
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

XI.

Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
And grasped his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this
place;

They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

XII.

"Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;

He had a fever late, and in the fit

He cursed thee and thine, both house and land; Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit More tame for his gray hairs- Alas me! flit! Flit like a ghost away."-"Ah, Gossip dear, We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit, And tell me how "- "Good Saints! not here, not here;

Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

XIII.

He followed through a lowly archéd way, Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume; And as she muttered "Well-a-well-a-day!" He found him in a little moonlit room, Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. "Now tell me where is Madeline,” said he; "Oh tell me, Angela, by the holy loom Which none but secret sisterhood may see, When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously."

XIV.

"St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve,Yet men will murder upon holy days: Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays, To venture so: it fills me with amaze To see thee, Porphyro!-St. Agnes' Eve! God's help! my lady fair the conjurer plays This very night: good angels her deceive! But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to grieve."

XV.

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon, While Porphyro upon her face doth look, Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book, As spectacled she sits in chimney nook. But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold, And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

XVI.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his painéd heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
"A cruel man and impious thou art:

Made tunable with every sweetest vow;

And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: How changed 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 woe, For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go."

XXXVI.

Beyond a mortal man impassioned far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odor with the violet,Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum, pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes: St. Agnes' moon hath set.

XXXVII.

'Tis dark; quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet; "This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!" "Tis dark; the icéd gusts still rave and beat; "No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine! Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring? I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, Though thou forsakest a deceivéd thing;

A dove forlorn and lost, with sick, unprunéd wing."

XL.

She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears— Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found; In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-dropped lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

XLI.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall! Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl, With a huge empty flagon by his side; The wakeful blood-hound rose, and shook his hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns; By one and one the bolts full easy slide :The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones; The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

XLII.

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. That night the Baron dreamed of many a woe, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform; The Beadsman, after thousand avés told, For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.

ODE.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large bluebells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;

Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trancéd thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumbered, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

BEAUTY.

FROM "ENDYMION."

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the Inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season: the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;
And such, too, is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin Now, while I cannot hear the city's din; Now, while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy-pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write Before the daisies, vermeil-rimmed and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet-peas, I must be near the middle of my story. Oh! may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finished; but let autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end. And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, on through flowers and weed.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.

A BALLAD.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?