ION DESCRIBED BY AGENOR.

ION, our sometime darling, whom we prized
As a stray gift, by bounteous Heaven dismiss'd
From some bright sphere which sorrow may not cloud
To make the happy happier! Is he sent
To grapple with the miseries of this time,
Whose nature such ethereal aspect wears
As it would perish at the touch of wrong?
By no internal contest is he train'd
For such hard duty; no emotions rude
Hath his clear spirit vanquish'd; Love, the germ
Of his mild nature, hath spread graces forth,
Expanding with its progress, as the store
Of rainbow colour which the seed conceals
Sheds out its tints from his dim treasury,
To flush and circle in the flower. No tear
Hath fill'd his eye save that of thoughtful joy,
When, in the evening stillness, lovely things
Press'd on his soul too busily; his voice,
If, in the earnestness of childish sports,
Raised to the tone of anger, check'd its force,
As if it fear'd to break its being's law,
And falter'd into music; when the forms
Of guilty passion have been made to live
In pictured speech, and others have wax'd loud
In righteous indignation, he hath heard
With sceptic smile, or from some slender vein
Of goodness, which surrounding gloom conceal d,
Struck sunlight o'er it; so his life hath flow'd
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirror'd; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.

ION RECEIVING THE SACRIFICIAL KNIFE FROM CTESIPHON.

YE eldest gods,

Who in no statues of exactest form
Are palpable; who shun the azure heights
Of beautiful Olympus, and the sound
Of ever-young Apollo's minstrelsy;
Yet, mindful of the empire which ye held
Over dim Chaos, keep revengeful wrath
On falling nations, and on kingly lines
About to sink for ever: ye, who shed
Into the passions of earth's giant brood
And their fierce usages the sense of justice;
Who clothe the fated battlements of tyranny
With blackness as a funeral pall, and breathe
Through the proud halls of time-embolden'd guilt
Portents of ruin, hear me !-In your presence,
For now I feel ye nigh, I dedicate
This arm to the destruction of the king
And of his race; O keep me pitiless:
Expel all human weakness from my frame,
That this keen weapon shake not when his heart
Should feel its point; and if he has a child
Whose blood is needful to the sacrifice
My country asks, harden my soul to shed it!—
Was not that thunder?

ION AT THE ENTRANCE OF A

FOREST.

O WINDING pathways, o'er whose scanty blades
Of unaspiring grass mine eyes have bent
So often when by musing fancy sway'd,
That craved alliance with no wider scene
Than your fair thickets border'd, but was pleased
To deem the toilsome years of manhood flown,
And, on the pictured mellowness of age
Idly reflective, image my return

From careful wanderings, to find ye gleam
With unchanged aspect on a heart unchanged,
And melt the busy past to a sweet dream
As then the future was;-why should ye now
Echo my steps with melancholy sound
As ye were conscious of a guilty presence?
The lovely light of eve, that, as it waned,
Touch'd ye with softer, homelier look, now fades
In dismal blackness:-and yon twisted roots
Of ancient trees, with whose fantastic forms
My thoughts grew humorous, look terrible,
As if about to start to serpent life,

And hiss around me;-whither shall I turn?-
Where fly-I see the myrtle-cradled spot
Where human love, instructed by divine,
Found and embraced me first; I'll cast me down
Upon that earth as on a mother's breast,
In hope to feel myself again a child.

FAME.

THE names that slow oblivion have defied,
And passionate ambition's wildest shocks
Stand in lone grandeur, like eternal rocks,
To cast broad shadows o'er the silent tide
Of time's unebbing flood, whose waters glide

To ponderous darkness from their secret spring,
And, bearing on each transitory thing,
Leave those old monuments in loneliest pride.
There stand they-fortresses uprear'd by man,
Whose earthly frame is mortal; symbols high
Of power unchanging,-thought that cannot die;
Proofs that our nature is not of a span,
But of immortal essence, and allied
To life and joy and love unperishing.

TO THE THAMES AT WESTMINSTER.
WITH no cold admiration do I gaze
Upon thy pomp of waters, matchless stream!
But home-sick fancy kindles with the beam

That on thy lucid bosom faintly plays,
And glides delighted through thy crystal ways,
Till on her eye those wave-fed poplars gleam,

Beneath whose shade her first ethereal maze She fashion'd; where she traced in clearest dream Thy mirror'd course of wood-enshrined repose Besprent with island haunts of spirits bright; And widening on-till, at the vision's close, Great London, only then a name of might

For childish thought to build on, proudly rose A rock-throned city clad in heavenly light.

JOHN KEATS was born on the twenty-ninth of October, 1796, in' the Moorfields, London, where his father and grandfather kept a liverystable. His birth is said to have been premature; he was a feeble and sickly child; and whatever had been the cast of his life, it would probably have been of brief duration. He received the rudiments of a classical education at Enfield, and on leaving school was apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton; but coming into possession of a small patrimony, he abandoned the study of a profession, and determined to devote his time to poetry. Mr. CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE, editor of "The Riches of Chaucer," introduced him to LEIGH HUNT, then proprietor of the “Examiner,” in which appeared the first poems he ever published. "I shall never forget," writes Mr. HUNT, "the impression made upon me by the exuberant specimens of genuine, though young, poetry, which were laid before me, the promise of which was seconded by the fine, fervid countenance of the writer." They soon became very intimate. "We read and walked together," says HUNT, "and used to write verses of an evening upon a given subject; no imaginative pleasure was left unnoticed by us, or unenjoyed; from the recollection of the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at our window, or the clicking of the coal in winter-time." At this time KEATS was twenty-one; in the next year, 1817, appeared his first volume of poetry, and in the following spring, “Endymion." They were badly received by the critics. Every one, we suppose, has heard of the bitter review attributed to GIFFORD, in the Quarterly, which, with some show of reason, was said to have caused the poet's death. It was in the common vein of those critics who, misapprehending the nature of their vocation, read only to discover faults. The poems, with great and singular beauties, had, indeed, their blemishes, such as are common to young authors. They were diffuse, and abounded in strange words, and unallowable rhymes; but they contained noble passages, such as were never written by

any other author of so immature an age. It is best, generally, to point out with honest frankness a young writer's faults; too much censure is better than over-praise; but KEATS was morbidly sensitive, quite unfit to bear the unsparing ridicule and invective with which his works were greeted, embittering the residue of his brief life, if they did not cause his death.

After the publication of "Endymion," KEATS made excursions into Scotland, and to the south of England and the Isle of Wight. During a severe illness which followed, he was watched over with tender solicitude by his friends Mr. CHARLES BROWN and LEIGH HUNT. Though depressed, he was not disheartened, and he wrote in two years his "Lamia," "Isabella," "Eve of St. Agnes," "Hyperion," ," and some minor poems, which were printed in 1820. "He sent them out," says SHELLEY, with "a careless despair," without confidence or fear. But the world was now prepared to render a different verdict

66

upon his works. Hyperion," wrote BYRON,

"seems inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Eschylus." Praise was not yet universal, but it came from the high-priests of genius.

66

In October of this year, KEATS left England, never to return. He sailed for Naples, whence he soon went to Rome. He lingered there, in gradual decline, until the year was nearly closed, gentle, and patient, and grateful for every kindness. He knew that he was dying. "I feel the daises growing over me," he said one day, and at another time he requested that if any epitaph were put above him, it should be," Here lies one whose name was writ in water." He died on the twenty-seventh of December, 1820, and was buried close by the pyramid of Cestus, in the cemetery of the English Protestants, at Rome; "a place so beautiful," says SHELLEY, "that it might almost make one in love with death."

"He was under the middle height;" says LEIGH HUNT, "and his lower limbs were small in comparison with the upper, but neat

and well-turned. His shoulders were very broad for his size; he had a face in which energy and sensibility were remarkably mixed up-an eager power, checked and made patient by illhealth. Every feature was at once strongly cut and delicately alive. If there was any faulty expression, it was in the mouth, which was not without something of a character of pugnacity. The face was rather long than otherwise; the upper lip projected a little over the under; the chin was bold, the cheeks sunken; the eyes mellow and glowing-large, dark, and sensitive. At the recital of a noble action, or a beautiful thought, they would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled. In this, there was ill-health as well as imagination, for he did not like these betrayals of emotion: and he had great personal, as well as moral cou

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.

ST. AGNES' EVE-Ah, bitter chill it was! 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.

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, Imprison'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. Northward he turneth through a little door, And scarce three steps, ere music's golden tongue Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor; But no-already had his death-bell 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. That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft; And so it chanced, 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-eyed, Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.

rage. His hair, of a brown colour, was fine, and hung in natural ringlets."

KEATS was the greatest of all poets who have died so young. His imagination, which he most delighted to indulge through the medium of mythological fable, was affluent and warm. Some of his pictures of this kind are rich beyond any similar productions in our language. They have a voluptuous glow, that prove a keen and passionate sense of the beautiful. The loose versification of many of his works has induced belief that he lacked energy proportionate to the vividness of his conceptions; but the opinion is wrong. Many of his sonnets possess a Miltonic vigour, and his "Eve of St. Agnes," is as highly finished, almost, as the masterpieces

of POPE.

At length burst in the argent revelry, With plume, tiara, and all rich array, Numerous as shadows haunting fairily The brain, new stuff'd, in youth, with triumphs gay Of old romance. These let us wish away, And turn, sole-thoughted, to one lady there, Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day, On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care, As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, Young virgins might have visions of delight, And soft adorings from their loves receive Upon the honey'd 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, Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train Pass by-she heeded not at all: in vafn Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier, And back retired; not cool'd by high disdain. But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere: She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes, Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short: The hallow'd hour was near at hand: she sighs Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort Of whispers in anger, or in sport; Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn, Hoodwink'd with fairy 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 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.

He ventures in let no buzz'd whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, love's fev'rous 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.
Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,

To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her: but soon she knew his face,
And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this
place;

They are all here to-night, the whole bloodthirsty race!

"Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;

He had a fever late, and in the fit

He cursed thee and thine, both house and land: Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit More tame for his gray hairs-Alas me! flit! Flit like a ghost away."-"Ah! gossip dear, We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit, And tell me how"- -"Good saints! not here, not here;

Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

He followed through a lowly arched way,
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
And as she mutter'd" Well-a-well-a-day!"
He found him in a little moonlight room,
Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb.
"Now tell me where is Madeline," said he,
Oh tell me, Angela, by the holy loom

Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously."
"St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve-
Yet men will murder upon holy days:
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve.
And be liege-lord 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 conjuror 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 aged 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 pained 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 play, 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 fang'd 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,
Were never miss'd."-Thus plaining, doth she
bring

A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or wo.

Which was to lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legion'd fairies paced the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.
"It shall be as thou wishest," said the dame :
"All cates and dainties shall be stored there
Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
Wait here my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
The while Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead."
So saying she hobbled off with busy fear.
The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd;
The dame return'd, and whisper'd in his ear
To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd, and chaste;
Where Porphyro took covert, pleased amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

Her faltering hand upon the balustrade, Old Angela was feeling for the stair, When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware: With silver taper's light, and pious care, She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led To a safe level matting. Now prepare, Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed; She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd and fled.

Out went the taper as she hurried in ;

Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No utter'd syllable, or, wo betide!

But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens
and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon: Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven:-Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,

But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
And listen'd to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;

And breathed himself: then from the closet crept, Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness, And over the hush'd carpet, silent, stept, And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where, lo !-how fast she slept.

Then by the bedside, where the faded moon Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set A table, and, half-anguish'd, threw thereon A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet :Oh for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender'd, While he from forth the closet brought a heap Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; With jellies soother than the creamy curd, And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.

These delicates he heap'd with glowing hand
On golden dishes and in baskets bright
Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand
In the retired quiet of the night,
Filling the chilly room with perfume light.—
"And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite :
Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake,
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache."

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream
By the dusk curtains:-'t was a midnight charm
Impossible to melt as iced stream:

The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:
It seem'd he never, never could redeem
From such a steadfast spell his lady's eyes;
So mused awhile, entoil'd in woofed fantasies.

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,Tumultuous, and, in chords that tenderest be, He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute, In Provence call'd, "La belle dame sans mercy;" Close to her ear touching the melody;Wherewith disturb'd, she utter'd a soft moan: He ceased-she panted quick-and suddenly Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone : Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured

stone.

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,
Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:
There was a painful change, that nigh expell'd
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep,
At which fair Madeline began to weep,
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,