The sculptured dead on each side seemed to freeze, Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat❜ries, To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails. III. Northward he turneth through a little door, IV. That ancient beadsman heard the prelude soft; Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, With hair blown back, and wings put crosswise on their breasts. V. At length burst in the argent revelry The brain, new stuffed, in youth, with triumphs gay Of old romance. These let us wish away, And turn, sole-thoughted, to one lady there, Whose heart had brooded all that wintry day On love, and winged St. Agnes' saintly care, As she had heard old dames full many times declare. VI. They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. VII. full of this whim was youthful Madeline : The music, yearning, like a god in pain, She scarcely heard; her maiden eyes divine, Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train Pass by, she heeded not at all; in vain Came many a tip-toe 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, 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, Buttressed from moonlight, stands he, and implores But for one moment in the tedious hours, Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss;—in sooth such things have been. X. He ventures in―let no buzzed whisper tell; Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul. XI. Ah! happy chance! the aged creature came To where he stood, hid from the torches' light, The sound of merriment and chorus bland. 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: 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, arched way, XIV. "St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve— Yet men will murder upon holidays; Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, And be the liege lord of all elves and fays, To venture so: it fills me with amaze XV. Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon, XVI. Sudden a thought came, like a full-blown rose, Sweet lady! let her pray, and sleep and dream, From wicked men like thee.-Go! go! I deem Thou canst not, surely, be the same that thou dost seem.” XVII. "I will not harm her, by all saints, I swear!” Quoth Porphyro. "Oh, may I ne'er find grace, my If one of her soft ringlets I displace, |