"And, on sweet St. Agnes' night, 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. THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. ST. AGNES' EVE. BY JOHN KEATS. I. 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 elegances of which we are to have more in the poem ! "The owl, with all his feathers, was a-cold." Could he have selected an image more warm and comfortable in itself, and therefore better contradicted by the season? We feel the plump, feathery bird in 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 reverse 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, 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 germ 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 afterwards in Italian, which language he- was mastering with surprising quickness. A friend of ours has a copy of Ariosto, containing admiring marks of his pen. But the same thought may have originally struck one poet as well as another. Perhaps there are few that have not felt something like it, in seeing the figures upon tombs. Here, however, for the first time, we believe, in English poetry, is it expressed, and with what feeling 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 the gloom of the punishment,Imprisoned in black purgatorial rails." III. Northward he turneth through a little door, Rough ashes sat he, for his soul's reprieve; "Flattered to tears this aged man and poor." This "flattered" is exquisite. A true poet is by nature a metaphysician; far greater in general than metaphysicians professed. He feels instinctively what the others get at by long searching. In this word "flattered" is the whole theory of the secret of tears; which are the tributes, more or less worthy, of selfpity to self-love. Whenever we shed tears, we take pity on ourselves; and we feel, if we do not consciously say so, that we deserve to have the pity taken. In many cases, the pity is just, and the self-love not to be construed unhandsomely. In many others, it is the reverse; and this is the reason why selfish people are so often found among the tear-shedders, and why they seem even to shed them for others. They imagine themselves in the situation of the others- as indeed the most generous must-before they can sympathize; but the generous console as well as weep. Selfish tears are niggardly of every thing but themselves. "Flattered to tears." Yes, the poor old man was moved by the sweet music to think that so sweet a thing was intended for his comfort as well as for others. He felt that the mysterious kindness of Heaven did not omit even his poor, old, sorry case in its numerous workings and visitations; and, as he wished to live longer, he began to think that his wish was to be attended to. He began to consider how much he had suffered; how much he had suffered wrongly or mysteriously; and how much better a man he was, with all his sins, than fate seemed to have taken him for. Hence he found himself deserving of tears and self-pity; and he shed them, and felt soothed by his poor, old, loving self. Not undeservedly either; for he was a painstaking pilgrim, aged, patient, and humble, and willingly suffered cold and toil for the sake of something better than he could otherwise deserve; and so the pity is not exclusively on his own side: we pity him too, and would fain see him well out of that cold chapel, gathered into a warmer place than a grave. But it was not to be. We must, there fore, console ourselves with knowing that this icy endurance of his was the last, and that he soon found himself at the sunny gate of heaven. IV. That ancient beadsman heard the prelude soft; The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide; Were glowing to receive a thousand guests: 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 VI. They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. |