It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be;

I learned to love despair.

And thus, when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage-and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home.
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade;
Had seen the mice by moonlight play-
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill; yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell.
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:-even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES

ST. AGNES' EVE-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.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;

Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,

And back returneth, meager, barefoot, wan,

Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze,

in heard the prelude soft;
many a door was wide,
o. Soon, up aloft,
tumpets 'gan to chide:
ready with their pride,

ive a thousand guests:

ver eager-eyed,

their heads the cornice rests,

, and wings put cross-wise on their

the argent revelry,

and all rich array,

ows haunting faerily

fed in youth, with triumphs gay

These let us wish away,

ughted, to one Lady there,

brooded, all that wintry day,

ged St. Agnes' saintly care,
d dames full many times declare.

w, upon St. Agnes' eve, ight have visions of delight, is from their loves receive ed middle of the night,

If ceremonies due they did aright;

As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine
Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass by-she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
And back retired; not cooled by high disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes,
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
The hallowed hour was near at hand: she sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
Hoodwinked with faery fancy; all amort,
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

So, purposing each moment to retire,

She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,

Buttressed 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.

He ventures in: let no buzzed whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel:
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,

rphyro! hie thee from this place; ight, the whole blood-thirsty race!

nce! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;

and in the fit

thine, both house and land:

ld Lord Maurice, not a whit gray hairs-Alas me! flit! way."-"Ah, Gossip, dear,

here in this armchair sit,

"Good Saints! not here, not here: else these stones will be thy bier."

ugh a lowly arched way, webs with his lofty plume, ered "Well-a-well-a-day!" a little moonlight room, ill, and silent as a tomb. here is Madeline," said he, cla, by the holy loom, secret sisterhood may see, nes' wool are weaving piously."

h! it is St. Agnes' Eve—

urder upon holy days:

1 water in a witch's sieve,
rd of all the Elves and Fays,

To venture so: it fills me with amaze
To see thee, Porphyro!-St. Agnes' Eve!
God's help! my lady fair the conjurer plays
This very night: good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile,—I've mickle time to grieve."

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
Like puzzled urchin on an agèd crone
Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book,
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his painèd heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
"A cruel man and impious thou art:

Sweet lady! let her pray, and sleep, and dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart

From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem

Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem."

"I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,"
Quoth Porphyro: "O may I ne'er find grace
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,

If one of her soft ringlets I displace,

Or look with ruffian passion in her face.

Good Angela, believe me, by these tears;

Or I will, even in a moment's space,

Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears,

And beard them, though they be more fanged than wolves and bears."

"Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?

A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,