MADELINE.

[From The Eve of St. Agnes.]

  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.

  A casement high and triple-arched there was,
  All garlanded with carven imageries
  Of fruits and flowers and bunches of knot-grass,
  And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
  Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes
  As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damasked wings;
  And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,
  And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
  A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings.

  Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
  And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast
  As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
  Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed,
  And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
  And on her hair a glory, like a saint: 
  She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed,
  Save wings, for heaven:  Porphyro grew faint: 
  She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

CHARLES DICKENS.

BOB SAWYER’S BACHELOR PARTY.

[From Pickwick Papers.]

After supper another jug of punch was put on the table, together with a paper of cigars and a couple of bottles of spirits.  Then there was an awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common occurrence in this sort of places, but a very embarrassing one, notwithstanding.

The fact is that the girl was washing the glasses.  The establishment boasted four; we do not record this circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. Raddle, for there was never a lodging-house yet that was not short of glasses.  The landlady’s glasses were little thin blown-glass tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were great, dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg.  This would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man’s glass away long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be conveyed down-stairs and washed forthwith....

The sight of the tumblers restored Bob Sawyer to a degree of equanimity which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady.  His face brightened up, and he began to feel quite convivial.