Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/197

 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.

I.


 * 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.

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 sculptured 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.