1 90 Poems of John Keats. 



and shift the scene. There is yet another being for whom the mys- 

 teries of this eve have a deep interest. Porphyro, the young and 

 gallant cavalier, whose image doubtless danced before Madeline's 

 mind's eye, as he himself was destined hereafter to hang over her 

 pillow, has come over the moors, to speak and kneel, to perchance 

 touch, and even kiss (such things have been, says Keats), the lady of 

 his heart. But Porphyro has a dangerous citadel to storm ; the gates 

 of Madeline's mansion are closed against him ; the halls are full of 

 foes, who hate him so much, that 



"Their very dogs would execrations howl 

 Against his lineage ;" 



and in the whole of that hostile place, except its choicest ornament 

 and gem, he has but one other friend, "an old beldame weak in body 

 and in soul." But true love laughs at barriers, and defies the dag- 

 ger's point. Porphyro enters : we cannot resist giving our readers 

 the exquisite stanzas that follow : 



"A happy chance! the aged creature (meaning the beldame) came 



Shuffling along with ivory-handled 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 took 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. 



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



He had a fever late, and in the fit 



He cursed both thee and thine, both house and land ; 



Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit 



More tame for his grey 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.' 



" He followed through a lowly arched way, 

 Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume, 

 And as she mutter'd, ' Well, ah, well-a-day !' 

 He found him in a little moonlight room, 

 Pale latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb." 



It is to be observed how perfect is the keeping of this; the scenes 

 and the characters are all in unison with the shadowy mysteriousness 

 of St. Agnes eve, nor can any thing be more smooth, unlaboured, or 

 expressive, than the words depicturing them that^fall from the poet's 

 lips. The beldame, with that mixture of envy and querulous weak- 

 ness characteristic of old age, " laughs feebly in the languid moon," 

 when she hears that Porphyro has come to see his beloved Madeline 

 on this evening of all others ; but after they have conversed together, 

 her heart freely opens to the young cavalier, and she tells him how 

 Madeline has determined to observe those ceremonies which may 



