When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid,
Rose, like a missioned spirit, unaware;
With silver taper's light, and pious care,
She turned, 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
frayed 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 uttered syllable, or woe 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.

O leave me not in this eternal woe,

for thee."

to go;"

Beyond a mortal man impassioned far

At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose;

Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odor with the violet,

Solution sweet; meantime the frost-wind blows

Like love's alarum, pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set.

For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears. Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found;

In all the house was heard no human sound; A chain-dropped lamp was flickering by each door;

The arras, rich with horseman, hawk and hound,

Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

Golden bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging, And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,
And the wrangling,

tells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight! From the molten, golden notes,

All in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she

gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

By the sinking and the swelling in the anger

of the bells

Of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells.

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells,

Iron bells!

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning;

Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before.

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;

December.

And each separate, dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,

Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating:

""Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;

This it is, and nothing more."

mystery explore;

then no longer,

from the Nightly shore.