THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.

[In a letter to George Keats and his wife dated the 14th of Febru ary [1819], Keats says that he took with him to Chichester, where he had been staying in January, "some of the thin paper, and wrote on it a little poem called St. Agnes' Eve,' which you will have as it is, when I have finished the blank part of the rest for you." Lord Houghton says the poem "was begun on a visit in Hampshire, at the commencement of this year [1819], and finished on his return to Hampstead." On the 5th of September 1819, Keats wrote to Taylor from Winchester that he was " occupied in revising St. Agnes' Eve,' and studying Italian." The manuscript of The Eve of St. Agnes, wanting the first seven stanzas, is in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker. It was among the relics which passed from the late Joseph Severn to a Dr. Valeriani, and which were afterwards bought and sold by Messrs. Sotheran of Piccadilly. This manuscript is written in double columns on both sides of very thin oblong paper, presumably that taken to Chichester, and shows abundant and extensive revisions and corrections. Nothing could be more interesting as a study of a great poet's way of work. It is a calamity that the opening stanzas are missing it seems likely that they were separated to send to the publishers in connexion with Keats's complaint that a liberty had been taken with the seventh stanza. See the note to that stanza. I have collated the text with the manuscript and noted even variations of no great consequence in themselves, in order to give as complete an insight as possible into the composition of this deservedly much-prized poem. Leigh Hunt in his London Journal for the 21st of January 1835, printed the whole poem with a delightful running commentary between the stanzas; and this I have transferred to the present edition in the shape of foot-notes, after collating it with the revision which has so prominent a place in Imagination and Fancy. I have not thought it necessary to omit whatever is left out of the revision; but have adopted the later readings wherever it is clear that a change was made for the simple sake of improvement. Hunt opens his paper in the Journal thus:

66

The reader should give us three pearls, instead of three halfpence, for this number of our Journal, for it presents him with the

whole of Mr. Keats's beautiful poem, entitled as above, to say noth-
ing of our loving commentary. We promised, some time ago, in giv-
ing quotations from Thomson's Castle of Indolence,' to read a small
poem occasionally with the reader, after this fashion. Correspondents
have more than once reminded us of the promise: we never lost sight
of it, and here we redeem it; as we hope we often shall. To-day is
the Eve of St. Agnes; and we thought we could not take a better op-
portunity of increasing the public acquaintance with this exquisite pro-
duction, which is founded on the popular superstition connected with
the day. St. Agnes was a Roman Virgin, who suffered martyrdom in
the reign of Dioclesian. Her parents, a few days after her decease,
are said to have had a vision of her, surrounded by angels, and at-
tended by a white lamb, which afterwards 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 promis'd 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."

Hunt is wrong in saying the 21st of January is the Eve of St. Agnes. That day is the Feast of St. Agnes: the Eve or Vigil is of course the 20th. An account of the superstitions connected with this Vigil, the English "Halloween," will be found in Chambers's Book of Days. — H. B. F.]

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.

I.

T. Agnes' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!

ST

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp'd 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,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

(1) Hunt, quoting the first line as an illustration for the paper A "Now;" descriptive of a Cold Day in his London Journal for the 3rd of December 1834, changes the sex of the owl and reads

"The owl, with all her feathers, is a-cold,

or you think her so." In his comment on the whole stanza he again misquotes the line. He says, What a complete feeling of winter-time is here, together with , an intimation of those Catholic elegancies, 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 cringing 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 with itself and 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."

In the letter which Keats wrote to Taylor about an alteration made in stanza vii (which see) he explains that he used the word chill "to avoid the echo cold in the second line;" from which we may infer that the publisher had altered chill to cold! We may safely assume that the obsolete form a-cold was imported straight from Shakespeare, since in Keats's copy of the 1808 folio Scene IV of Act III of King Lear bears evidence of having been read shortly after Tom Keats's death; and the words poore Tom, in the immediate neighbourhood of Tom's a cold, are underlined, the date Sunday evening, Oct. 4, 1818, being written alongside by Keats.

II.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison'd 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.

III.

Northward he turneth through a little door,

And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue

(II) Hunt says "The germ of the 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. Carey'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, it is 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 colour of the rails is made to assume a meaning, and to shadow forth the gloom of the punishment

Imprisoned in black purgatorial rails."

The passage of Dante referred to is in Canto X of the Purgatorio, and relates to
"the souls of those who expiate the sin of pride, and who are bent down beneath
the weight of heavy stones." I quote the version of Cary, as that with which Keats
was familiar:

As, to support incumbent floor or roof,
For corbel, is a figure sometimes seen,
That crumples up its knees unto its breast;
With the feign'd posture, stirring ruth unfeign'd
In the beholder's fancy; so I saw

These fashion'd, when I noted well their guise.
Each, as his back was laden, came indeed

Or more or less contracted; and it seem'd
As he, who show'd most patience in his look,
Wailing exclaim'd: "I can endure no more."

Cary adds the following note to this passage: "Chillingworth, cap. vi. § 54, speaks
of those crouching anticks, which seem in great buildings to labour under the
weight they bear.' And Lord Shaftesbury has a similar illustration in his Essay
on Wit and Humour, p. 4. §3."

(III) Hunt italicizes and comments thus:

"Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.

This 'flattered' is exquisite. A true poet is by nature a metaphysician; far greater

Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
But no- already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.

IV.

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
And so it chanc'd, for many a door was wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-ey'd,

Star'd, where upon their heads the cornice rests,

With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.

V.

At length burst in the argent revelry,
With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting faerily

The brain, new stuff'd, in youth, with triumphs gay

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 self-pity 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 never 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 everything but themselves. Flatter'd 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 and 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 pains-taking pilgrim, aged, patient, and humble, and willingly suffered cold and toil, for the sake of something better than