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 rose again.”
And now, when the maiden is all asleep, her lover steals from his hiding place, and mixing a charm, kneels by her bedside, and while his warm unnerved arm sinks in her pillow, he whispers to her that he is her eremite, and beseeches her for sweet Agnes’ sake to open her eyes. But the maiden, lying there in her holy sleep, awakes not. At length he takes her lute, and kneeling by her ear, plays an ancient ditty. She utters a soft moan. He ceases—she pants quick—and suddenly her blue eyes open in affright, while her lover sinks again on his knees, pale as a sculptured statue. And Madeline awakening, and thinking that her blissful dream is over, begins to weep. At length she finds vent for her words, and are they not sweet as the complainings of a dove?
“Ah! Porphyro!” said she “but even now
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tunable with every sweetest vow;
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: