“When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
Rose, like a missioned spirit unaware:
With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
To a safe level matting.”
Ah! we have few Madelines now-a-days. I love her for that act, as I would love an only daughter. Well may the poet exultingly say after this—
“Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.”
The whole picture that follows is purity itself. We wish the wind would whistle less loudly without—there! it dies away as if in homage to this maiden soft. Shut your eyes and dream, while I read in whispers.