III. He came on Sir Florice of Sesseny Land, 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; From the crown of his head to the tip of his toe; 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; 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. 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, 'Twas a faery in disguise. In a dragon's form she had ridden the storm, Sir Grahame's ship was stout and fast, With all the crew and lading. And the yeoman found her sleeping; 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 The faery's form from his shuddering sight IX. Disconsolate that youth departed, And wended, chill and broken-hearted, As he hid his face, and cried. Stood in its own dear nook, But long-how long!-he knelt, and prayed, He looked at last; his joy was there, In mute and motionless despair, X. If, in the warm and passionate hour, A dream of delicate beauty melt Seen by the soul, and seen by the mind, A bright creation, a shadowy ray, XI. For, oh! the light of my saddened theme He drew the flames of his nostrils in, Into her song her dreams would throng, Entranced the soul in its desolate grace. 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, From a lip so young, to an ear so cold. When she met with the beast I was singing about: With his appetite weak, and his wonder strong. And the song of the lady was sweet the while "Nonny Nonny! I hear it float, It comes from thy home in the eglantine, "Nonny Nonny! LILLIAN sings But surely Sir Launcelot never heard XIII. The dragon he lay in mute amaze, Till something of kindness crept into his gaze; He veiled his claws with their speckled skin, And the song of the lady was sweet the while "Nonny Nonny! who shall tell Where the summer breezes dwell? "Nonny Nonny! I hear your tone, XIV. A moment! and the dragon came She had won his heart, while she charmed his ear, (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 dwarfs in a fright, and my girl in an attitude, While I drink my coffee, and nib my quill. But the town of Brentford marked with wonder A lightning in the sky, and thunder, A mighty mob to Merlin went To learn the cause of this portent; XVII. "Now the slayer doth not slay, He that would wed the loveliest maid, For the rider shall never be sound in the heao 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 had sharpened his discerning, XIX. Sir Eglamour was one o' the best He never set his spear in rest, But a dozen went to the ground. Clear and warm as the lightning flame, His cheek was like his mother's; Save Fanny's and two others! With his spur so bright, and his rein so light, And his skilful sword, to wound or ward, From London to Penzance, And jeerings and gibes in plenty, xx. He clasped to his side his sword of pride, With many a gory stain; And his shield he bound his arm around, Naught human could get through; 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, 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 I drink your changeless, endless song, 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 To think of bandying knocks; He came on his foe as still as death, And instead of drawing his sword from his sheath, XXIII. The pepper was as hot as flame, XXIV. Have you not seen a little kite Till, weak and unsteady, Torn by the eddy, It dashes to earth. from its hideous height. And alas! he did not wake before The cruel knight, with skill and might, == 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, And "Oh!" she saith, "my spirit doth seem The silent youth stood there : You that are young may picture the rest, Never before, on this warm land, XXVIII. When you were blest, in childhood's years, Where a greener glow was on the ground, THE EVE OF EVE OF ST. 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, 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. ST. AGNES' EVE-Ah! bitter chill it was; Like pious incense, from a censer old, 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. 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. 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 " |