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1st Knight.

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The enemy

2d Knight. Sure of a bloody prey, seeing

the fens

Will swamp them girth-deep.
Stephen.
Over head and ears,
No matter! 'Tis a gallant enemy;
How like a comet he goes streaming on.
But we must plague him in the flank,
hey, friends?

We are well breathed, follow!

Enter Earl BALDWIN and Soldiers, as defeated.

Stephen.

-

De Redvers !

What is the monstrous bugbear that can fright

Baldwin?

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Baldwin. No scare-crow, but the fortu

nate star

Of boisterous Chester, whose fell truncheon

now

Points level to the goal of victory.
This way he comes, and if you would main-

tain

Your person unaffronted by vile odds,
Take horse, my Lord.

Stephen. And which way spur for life? Now I thank Heaven I am in the toils,

Bears his flaunt standard close upon their That soldiers may bear witness how my

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For I will never by mean hands be led From this so famous field. Do you hear!

Be quick!

Eats wholesome, sweet, and palatable food Off Glocester's golden dishes drinks pure

wine,

Trumpets. Enter the Earl of CHESTER and Lodges soft?

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A meek attentive ear, so that they treat Of the wide kingdom's rule and government,

Not trenching on our actions personal. Advised, not school'd, I would be; and henceforth

Spoken to in clear, plain, and open terms, Not side-ways sermon'd at.

Glocester.

Then in plain terms, Once more for the fallen kingMaud. Your pardon, Brother, I would no more of that; for, as I said, 'Tis not for worldly pomp I wish to see The rebel, but as dooming judge to give 20 A sentence something worthy of his guilt. Glocester. If 't must be so, I'll bring him to your presence.

[Exit GLOCESTER. Maud. A meaner summoner might do as well

My Lord of Chester, is 't true what I hear

Of Stephen of Boulogne, our prisoner,
That he, as a fit penance for his crimes,

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THE EVE OF ST. MARK

A FRAGMENT

In a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, dated February 14, 1819, Keats says that he means to send them in the next packet 'The Pot of Basil,' 'St. Agnes' Eve,' and 'if I should have finished it a little thing called "The Eve of St. Mark." He does not refer to the poem again directly, until writing from Winchester to the same, September 20, when he says: The great beauty of poetry is that it makes everything in every place interesting. The palatine Vienna and the abbotine Winchester are equally interesting. Some time since I began a poem called "The Eve of St. Mark," quite in the spirit of town quietude. I think I will give you the sensation of walking about an old country town in a coolish evening. I know not whether I shall ever finish it. I will give it as far as I have gone.' The poem appears never to have been finished, and was published in this fragmentary form in Life, Letters and Literary Remains.

Mr. Forman gives an interesting extract from

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 unmatured 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 fireside orat❜ries;
And moving, with demurest air,
To even-song, and vesper prayer.

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a letter written him by Mr. Rossetti, which throws a possible light on the origin of the poem. He had been reading Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne, and writes: 'I should think it very conceivable - nay, I will say to myself highly probable and almost certain, that the "Poem which I have in my head" referred to by Keats at page 106 was none other than the fragmentary" Eve of St. Mark." By the light of the extract, . . . I judge that the heroine remorseful after trifling with a sick and now absent lover-might make her way to the minster-porch to learn his fate by the spell, and perhaps see his figure enter but not return.' The extract from Keats's letter is as follows: If my health would bear it, I could write a Poem which I have in my head, which would be a consolation for people in such a situation as mine. I would show some one in Love as I am, with a person living in such Liberty as you do.'

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