The Eve of St. Agnes
John Keats
Teacher card
- Published
- 1820, in Poems Published in 1820
- Length
- 36 lines, 282 words, 1 word in 31 is long
- Year band
- Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
- Themes
- winter
- Time
- 5–10 min, depending on the activity
The text
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 toldHis 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, meagre, barefoot, wan,Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,He passeth by; and his weak spirit failsTo 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 tongueFlatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;But no—already had his deathbell 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 amongRough 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 chanc'd, 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,Star'd, where upon their heads the cornice rests,With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.
John Keats (died 1821), Poems Published in 1820 (1820), lines 2112–2156 of Project Gutenberg ebook #23684. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.
What to do with it
- Its lines are dealt for the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 36 lines · about 5–10 min
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#ke-agnes
Send the whole hand-out
https://popplepoetry.com/find/keats-eve-of-st-agnes · popplepoetry.com