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III.

He came on Sir Florice of Sesseny Land,
Pretty Sir Florice from over the sea,
And smashed him all as he stepped on the sand,
Cracking his head like a nut from the tree.
No one till now, had found, I trow,

Anything good in the scented youth,

Who had taken much pains to be rid of his brains, Before they were sought by the dragon's tooth.

IV.

He came on the sheriff of Hereford,

As he sat him down to his Sunday dinner;
And the sheriff he spoke but this brief word,
"St. Francis be good to a corpulent sinner!"
Fat was he, as a sheriff might be,

From the crown of his head to the tip of his toe;
But the sheriff was small, or nothing at all,
When put in the jaws of the dragon foe.

V.

He came on the Abbot of Arnondale,

As he kneeled him down to his morning devotion; But the dragon he shuddered, and turned his tail About, "with a short uneasy motion."

Iron and steel, for an early meal,

He stomached with ease, or the muse is a liar; But out of all question, he failed in digestion, If ever he ventured to swallow a friar!

VI.

Monstrous brute!-his dread renown

Made whispers and terrors in country and town;
Nothing was babbled by boor or knight
But tales of his civic appetite.

At last, as after dinner he lay,

Hid from the heat of the solar ray

By boughs that had woven an arbor shady,

He chanced to fall in with the headless lady.
Headless! alas! 'twas a piteous gibe;
I'll drink Aganippe, and then describe.

VII.

Her father had been a stout yeoman, Fond of his jest, and fond of his can,

But never over-wise;

And once, when his cups had been many and deep,
He met with a dragon fast asleep,

'Twas a faery in disguise.

In a dragon's form she had ridden the storm,
The realm of the sky invading;

Sir Grahame's ship was stout and fast,
But the faery came on the rushing blast,
And shivered the sails, and shivered the mast,
And down went the galiant ship, at last,

With all the crew and lading.
An! the fay laughed out, to see the rout,
As the last dim hope was fading;
And this she had done, in a love of fun,
And a love of masquerading.
She lay that night in a sunny vale,

And the yeoman found her sleeping;
Fiercely he smote her glittering tail,
But oh! his courage began to fail,

When the fairy rose all weeping.

"Thou hast lopped," she said, " beshrew thine hand! The fairest foot in fairy-land!

VIII.

"Thou hast an infant in thine home! Never to her shall reason come For weeping or for wail,

Till she shall ride with a fearless face On a living dragon's scale,

And fondly clasp to her heart's embrace
A living dragon's tail."

The faery's form from his shuddering sight
Flowed away in a stream of light.

IX.

Disconsolate that youth departed,
Disconsolate and poor;

And wended, chill and broken-hearted,
To his cottage on the moor;
Sadly and silently he knelt
His lonely hearth beside;
Alas! how desolate he felt

As he hid his face, and cried.
The cradle where the babe was laid

Stood in its own dear nook,

But long-how long!-he knelt, and prayed,
And did not dare to look.

He looked at last; his joy was there,
And slumbering with that placid air
Which only babes and angels wear.
Over the cradle he leaned his head;
The cheek was warm, and the lip was red;
And he felt, he felt, as he saw her lie,
A hope-which was a mockery.
The babe unclosed her eye's pale lid;
Why doth he start from the sight it hid?
He hath seen in the dim and fitful ray,
That the light of the soul hath gone away!
Sigh nor prayer he uttered there,

In mute and motionless despair,
But he laid him down beside his child,
And LILLIAN saw him die-and smiled.
The mother! she had gone before;
And in the cottage on the moor,
With none to watch her, and caress,
No arm to clasp, no voice to bless,
The witless child grew up alone,
And made all Nature's book her own.

X.

If, in the warm and passionate hour,
When Reason sleeps in Fancy's bower,
If thou hast ever, ever felt

A dream of delicate beauty melt
Into thine heart's recess,

Seen by the soul, and seen by the mind,
But indistinct in its loveliness,
Adored, and not defined;

A bright creation, a shadowy ray,
Fading and flitting in mist away,
Nothing to gaze on, and nothing to hear,
But something to cheat the eye and ear
With a fond conception and joy of both,
So that you might, that hour, be loath
To change for some one's sweetest kiss
Thy vision of unenduring bliss,
Or lose some one's sweetest tone,
The murmur thou drinkest all alone-
If such a vision hath ever been thine,
Thou hast a heart that may look on mine!

XI.

For, oh! the light of my saddened theme
Was like to naught but a poet's dream,
Or the forms that come on the twilight's wing,
Shaped by the soul's imagining.
Beautiful shade, with her tranquil air,
And her thin white arm, and her flowing hair,
And the light of her eye so coldly obscure,
And the hue of her cheek so pale and pure!
Reason and Thought she had never known,
Her heart was as cold as a heart of stone;
So you might guess from her eyes' dim rays,
And her idiot laugh, and her vacant gaze.
She wandered about all lone on the heather,
She and the wild heath-birds together;
For LILLIAN seldom spoke or smiled,
But she sang as sweet as a little child.

He drew the flames of his nostrils in,

Into her song her dreams would throng,
Silly, and wild, and out of place;
And yet that wild and roving song

Entranced the soul in its desolate grace.
And hence the story had ever run,

That the fairest of dames was a headless one.

XII.

The pilgrim in his foreign weeds

Would falter in his prayer;

And the monk would pause with his half-told beads

To breathe a blessing there;

The knight would loose his vizor-clasp,

And drop the rein from his nerveless grasp,

And pass his hand across his brow

With a sudden sigh, and a whispered vow,
And marvel Flattery's tale was told,

From a lip so young, to an ear so cold.
She had seen her sixteenth winter out

When she met with the beast I was singing about:
The dragon, I told you, had dined that day;
So he gazed upon her as he lay
Earnestly looking, and looking long,

With his appetite weak, and his wonder strong.
Silent he lay in his motionless coil;

And the song of the lady was sweet the while

"Nonny Nonny! I hear it float,
Innocent bird, thy tremulous note:

It comes from thy home in the eglantine,
And I stay this idle song of mine,
Nonny Nonny! to listen to thine!

"Nonny Nonny! LILLIAN sings
The sweetest of all living things!'
So Sir Launcelot averred;

But surely Sir Launcelot never heard
Nonny Nonny! the natural bird!"

XIII.

The dragon he lay in mute amaze,

Till something of kindness crept into his gaze;

He veiled his claws with their speckled skin,
He curled his fangs in a hideous smile;

And the song of the lady was sweet the while

"Nonny Nonny! who shall tell

Where the summer breezes dwell?
Lightly and brightly they breathe and blow
But whence they come and whither they go,
Nonny Nonny! who chall know?

"Nonny Nonny! I hear your tone,
Bat I feel ye can not read mine own;
And I lift my neck to your fond embraces,
But who hath seen in your resting-places,
Nonny Nonny! your beautiful faces?"

XIV.

A moment! and the dragon came
Crouching down to the peerless dame,
With his fierce red eye so fondly shining,
And his terrible tail so meekly twining,
And the scales on his huge limbs gleaming o'er
Gayer than ever they gleamed before.

She had won his heart, while she charmed his ear,
And LILLIAN Smiled, and knew no fear.
And see, she mounts between his wings;

(Never a queen had a gaudier throne,) And fairy-like she sits and sings,

Guiding the steed with a touch and a tone. Aloft, aloft in the clear blue ether,

The dame and the dragon they soared together; He bore her away on the breath of the galeThe two little dwarf's held fast by the tail.

XV.

Fanny! a pretty group for drawing;
My dragon like a war-horse pawing,

My dwarfs in a fright, and my girl in an attitude,
Patting the beast in her soulless gratitude.
There; you may try it, if you will,

While I drink my coffee, and nib my quill.

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But the town of Brentford marked with wonder

A lightning in the sky, and thunder,
And thinking ('twas a thinking town)
Some prodigy was coming down,

A mighty mob to Merlin went

To learn the cause of this portent;
And he, a wizard sage but comical,
Looked through his glasses astronomical,
And puzzled every foolish sconce
By this oracular response :-

XVII.

"Now the slayer doth not slay,
Weakness flings her fear away,
Power bears the powerless,
Pity rides the pitiless;
Are ye lovers? are ye brave?
Dear ye this, and seck, and save!

He that would wed the loveliest maid,
Must don the stoutest mail,

For the rider shall never be sound in the heao
Till the ridden be maimed in the tail.

Hey, diddle diddle! the cat and the fiddle! None but the lover can read me my riddle

XVIII.

How kind art thou, and oh! how mighty,
Cupid! thou son of Aphrodite !
By thy sole aid, in old romance,
Heroes and heroines sing and dance;
Of cane and rod there's little need;
They never learn to write or read;
Yet often, by thy sudden light,
Enamored dames contrive to write;
And often, in the hour of need,
Enamored youths contrive to read.
(I make a small digression here;
I merely mean to make it clear
That if Sir Eglamour had wit
To read and construe, bit by bit,
All that the wizard had expressed,
And start conjectures on the rest,

Cupid had sharpened his discerning,
The little god of love and learning,)
He revolved in his bed, what Merlin had said,
Though Merlin had labored to scatter a veil on't;
And found out the sense of the tail and the head,
Though none of his neighbors could made head or
tail on't.

XIX.

Sir Eglamour was one o' the best
Of Arthur's table round;

He never set his spear in rest,

But a dozen went to the ground.

Clear and warm as the lightning flame,
His valor from his father came,

His cheek was like his mother's;
And his hazel eye more clearly shone
Than any I ever have looked upon,

Save Fanny's and two others!

With his spur so bright, and his rein so light,
And his steed so swift and ready,

And his skilful sword, to wound or ward,
And his spear so sure and steady;
He bore him like a British knight

From London to Penzance,
Avenged all weeping women's slight,
And made all giants dance.
And he had travelled far from home,
Had worn a mask at Venice,
Had kissed the bishop's toe at Rome,
And beat the French at tennis!
Hence he had many a courtly play,

And jeerings and gibes in plenty,
And he wrote more rhymes in a single day
That Byron or Bowles in twenty.

xx.

He clasped to his side his sword of pride,
His sword, whose native polish vied

With many a gory stain;
Keen and bright as a meteor-light,
But not so keen, and not so bright,
As Moultrie's jesting vein.

And his shield he bound his arm around,
His shield, whose dark and dingy round

Naught human could get through;
Heavy and thick as a wall of brick,
But not so heavy and not so thick
As Robert's Review.t

With a smile and a jest he set out on the quest,

Clad in his stoutest mail,

With his helm of the best, and his spear in the rest,

To flay the dragon's tail.

XXI.

The warrior travelled wearily,
Many a league and many a mile;

And the dragon sailed in the clear blue sky;

And the song of the lady was sweet the while"My steed and I, my steed and I,

On in the path of the winds we fly,

And I chase the planets that wander at even,
And bathe my hair in the dews of heaven!
Beautiful stars, so thin and bright,
Exquisite visions of vapor and light,
I love ye all with a sister's love,
And I rove with ye wherever ye rove,

And I drink your changeless, endless song,
The music ye make as ye wander along!
Oh let me be, as one of ye,
Floating for aye on your liquid sea;
And I'll feast with you on the purest rain,
To cool my weak and wildered brain,

The Rev. John Moultrie, who, in 1823 (when many manuscript pies of Lillian" were in circulation), wrote some beautiful and hetic lyrics, some of which appeared in Knight's Quarterly Magazine.

My Grandmother's Review--the British." Don Juan. Roberts was the editor.--Vide Byron's celebrated letter to him

And I'll give you the loveliest lock of my hair For a little spot in your realm of air!"

XXII.

The dragon came down when the morn shone bright, And slept in the beam of the sun;

Fatigued, no doubt, with his airy flight,

As I with my jingling one.

With such a monstrous adversary
Sir Eglamour was far too weary

To think of bandying knocks;

He came on his foe as still as death,
Walking on tiptoe, and holding his breath,

And instead of drawing his sword from his sheath,
He drew a pepper-box!

XXIII.

The pepper was as hot as flame,
The box of wondrous size;
He gazed one moment on the dame,
Then, with a sure and steady aim,
Full in the dragon's truculent phiz
He flung the scorching powder-whiz!
And darkened both his eyes!

XXIV.

Have you not seen a little kite
Rushing away on its paper wing,
To mix with the wild wind's quarrelling?
Up it soars with an arrowy flight,

Till, weak and unsteady,

Torn by the eddy,

It dashes to earth. from its hideous height.
Such was the rise of the beast in his pain,
Such was his falling to earth again;
Upward he shot, but he saw not his path,
Blinded with pepper, and blinded with wrath;
One struggle-one vain one-of pain and emotion!
And he shot back again, "like a bird of the ocean
Long he lay, in a trance, that day,

And alas! he did not wake before

The cruel knight, with skill and might,
Had lopped and flayed the tail he wore.

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Strange thoughts are glimmering round her Deeper and deeper her cheek is glowing, Quicker and quicker her breath is flowing,

And her eye gleams out from its long dark lashes, Fast and full, unnatural flashes;

For nurriedly and wild

Doth reason pour her hidden treasures,
Of human griefs, and human pleasures.
Upon her new-found child.

And "Oh!" she saith, "my spirit doth seem
To have risen to-day from a pleasant dream;
A long, long dream-but I feel it breaking!
Painfully sweet is the throb of waking."
And then she laughed, and wept again:
While, gazing on her heart's first rain,
Bound in his turn by a magic chain,

The silent youth stood there :
Never had either been so blest ;-

You that are young may picture the rest,
You that are young and fair.

Never before, on this warm land,
Came Love and Reason hand in hand.

XXVIII.

When you were blest, in childhood's years,
With the brightest hopes, and the lightest fears,
Have you not wandered, in your dream,

Where a greener glow was on the ground,
And a clearer breath in the air around,
And a puzer life in the gay sunbeam,
And a tremulous murmur in every tree,
And a motionless sleep on the quiet sen?

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THE EVE OF

EVE OF ST.
ST. AGNES,

BY

JOHN KEATS.

THE reader should give us three pearls, instead of || by the season? We feel the plump, feathery bird in three half-pence, for this number of our publication, for it presents him with the whole of Mr. Keats's beautiful poem, entitled as above-to say nothing of our loving commentary.

St. Agnes was a Roman virgin, who suffered martyrdoin in the reign of Diocletian. 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 afterward 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 we 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 Pater-noster; after which, upon going to bed, the dream is sure to ensue. Brand quotes Ben Jonson:

"And on sweet St. Agnes' night,
Please you with the promised sight-
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers."

But another poet has now taken up the creed in good poetic earnest; and if the superstition should go out in every other respect, in his rich and loving pages it will live for ever.

I.

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ST. AGNES' EVE-Ah! bitter chill it was;
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold:
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold;
Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense, from a censer old,
Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

What a complete feeling of winter-time is here, together with an intimation of those Catholic elegancies, of which we are to have more ir the poem!

"The owl with all his featners was a-cold."

Could he have selected an image more warm and comfortable in itself, and, therefore, better contradicted

The price of the journal in which the article first ap

Dared.

his nook, shivering in spite of his natural household warmth, and staring out at the strange weather. The hare limping through the chill grass is very piteous, and the "silent flock" very patient; and how quiet and gentle, as well as winterly, 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 in itself, and with all that is going on. The breath of the pilgrim is visible, so is that of a censer; his object is religious, and so is the use of the 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 re verse in another.

II.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man.
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meager, barefoot, wan,

Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees :

The sculptured dead on each side seemed to freeze, Imprisoned in black purgatorial rails :

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat❜ries, He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

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The germe of this 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 afterward in Italian, which language he was mastering with surprising quickness. A friend of ours has a copy of Ariosto, con.aining admiring marks of his pen. Bu the same thought may have originally struck one poe. as well as another. Perhaps there are few that have tombs. Here, however, for the first time, we believe, not felt something like it, in seeing the figures upon in English poetry, is it expressed, and with what feel ing and elegance! Most wintry as well as penitential is the word "aching" in "icy hoods and mails," and most felicitous the introduction of the Catholic idea in

the word "purgatorial." The very color of the rails is made to assume a meaning, and to shadow forth ·'e gloom of the punishment

"Imprisoned ir. black purgatorial rails "

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