Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/200

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 * Hoodwink'd with faery fancy; all amort,
 * Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,

And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.


 * She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moors,
 * Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
 * For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
 * Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores
 * All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
 * But for one moment in the tedious hours,
 * That he might gaze and worship all unseen;

Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.


 * All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
 * Will storm his heart. Love's feverous citadel:
 * For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
 * Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
 * Whose very dogs would execrations howl
 * Against his lineage: not one breast affords
 * Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

the aged creature came,
 * Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
 * To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,