Mapping Keats’s Progress: The Eve of St. Mark

References to this poem

The Eve of St. Mark

Upon a Sabbath day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath bell,
That call’d the folk 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 vallies 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 in silver rays,
Aaron’s breastplate, and the seven
Candlesticks John saw in heaven,
The winged Lion of Saint Mark,
And the Covenantal Ark,
With its many mysteries,
Cherubim and golden mice.

Bertha was a maiden fair,
Dwelling in the 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 tried, 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 aching neck and swimming eyes,
And dazed with saintly imag’ries.

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 of 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;
Leaned forward, with bright drooping hair
And slant book, 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 av’davat,
And silken-furr’d Angora cat.
Untired 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 thate hir friendes thinke hem bound
In crimped shroude farre under grounde;
And how a litling child mote be
A saint er its nativitie,
Gif thate the modre ( God her blesse! )
Kepen in solitarinesse,
And kissen devoute the holy croce.
Of Goddis 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 Sainte Cicilie;
And chieflie whate he auctorethe
Of Sainte 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, —

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

The Eve of St. Mark

MLA Style: Works Cited

Chicago Style: Note

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Mapping Keats’s ProgressA Critical Chronology

The Eve of St. Mark

MLA Style: Works Cited

Chicago Style: Note

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology