dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Book of Georgian Verse  »  John Keats (1795–1821)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

The Eve of St. Mark

John Keats (1795–1821)

A Fragment

UPON a Sabbath-day it fell;

Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell,

That call’d the folks to evening prayer;

The city streets were clean and fair

From wholesome drench of April rains;

And, on the western window panes,

The chilly sunset faintly told

Of unmatur’d green valleys cold,

Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,

Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,

Of primroses by shelter’d rills,

And daisies on the aguish hills.

Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell:

The silent streets were crowded well

With staid and pious companies,

Warm from their fire-side orat’ries;

And moving, with demurest air,

To even-song, and vesper prayer.

Each arched porch, and entry low,

Was fill’d with patient folk and slow,

With whispers hush, and shuffling feet,

While play’d the organ loud and sweet.

The bells had ceas’d, the prayers begun,

And Bertha had not yet half done

A curious volume, patch’d and torn,

That all day long, from earliest morn,

Had taken captive her two eyes,

Among its golden broideries;

Perplex’d her with a thousand things,—

The stars of Heaven, and angels’ wings,

Martyrs in a fiery blaze,

Azure saints and silver rays,

Moses’ breastplate, and the seven,

Candlesticks John saw in Heaven,

The winged Lion of St. Mark,

And the Covenantal Ark,

With its many mysteries,

Cherubim and golden mice.

Bertha was a maiden fair,

Dwelling in th’ old Minster-square;

From her fire-side she could see,

Sidelong, its rich antiquity,

Far as the Bishop’s garden-wall;

Where sycamores and elm-trees tall,

Full-leav’d, the forest had outstript,

By no sharp north-wind ever nipt,

So shelter’d by the mighty pile.

Bertha arose, and read awhile,

With forehead ’gainst the window-pane.

Again she try’d, and then again,

Until the dusk eve left her dark

Upon the legend of St. Mark.

From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin,

She lifted up her soft warm chin.

With arching neck and swimming eyes,

And daz’d with saintly imageries.

All was gloom, and silent all,

Save now and then the still foot-fall

Of one returning homewards late,

Past the echoing minster-gate.

The clamorous daws, that all the day

Above tree-tops and towers play,

Pair by pair had gone to rest,

Each in its ancient belfry nest,

Where asleep they fall betimes,

To music and the drowsy chimes.

All was silent, all was gloom,

Abroad and in the homely room:

Down she sat, poor cheated soul;

And struck a lamp from the dismal coal;

Lean’d forward, with bright drooping hair

And slant look, full against the glare.

Her shadow, in uneasy guise,

Hover’d about, a giant size,

On ceiling-beam and old oak chair,

The parrot’s cage, and panel square;

And the warm angled winter-screen,

On which were many monsters seen,

Call’d doves of Siam, Lima mice,

And legless birds of Paradise,

Macaw, and tender Avadavat,

And silken-furr’d Angora cat.

Untir’d she read, her shadow still

Glower’d about, as it would fill

The room with wildest forms and shades,

As though some ghostly Queen of spades

Had come to mock behind her back,

And dance, and ruffle her garments black.

Untir’d she read the legend page,

Of holy Mark, from youth to age,

On land, on sea, in pagan chains,

Rejoicing for his many pains.

Sometimes the learned eremite,

With golden star, or dagger bright,

Referr’d to pious poesies

Written in smallest crow-quill size

Beneath the text: and thus the rhyme

Was parcel’d out from time to time:

——‘Als writith he of swevenis,

Men han beforne they wake in bliss,

Whanne that hir friendes thinke him bound

In crimped shroude farre under grounde:

And how a litling childe mote be

A saint er its nativitie,

Gif that the modre (God her blesse!)

Kepen in solitarinesse,

And kissen devoute the holy croce,

Of Goddes love, and Sathan’s force,—

He writith; and thinges many mo

Of swiche thinges I may not show.

Bot I must tellen verilie

Somdel of Saintè Cicilie,

And chieflie what he auctorethe

Of Saintè Markis life and dethe:’

At length her constant eyelids come

Upon the fervent martyrdom;

Then lastly to his holy shrine,

Exalt amid the tapers’ shine

At Venice,—