By the dusk curtains: 'twas a midnight charm The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam; Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, Wherewith disturbed she uttered a soft moan: Her blue affrayèd eyes wide open shone: Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone. Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep: 285 290 295 There was a painful change, that nigh expelled 300 At which fair Madeline began to weep, And moan forth witless words with many a sigh; 305 While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep; Who knelt, with joinèd hands and piteous eye, Fearing to move or speak, she looked so dreamingly. "Ah, Porphyro!" said she, "but even now Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, Made tunable with every sweetest vow; And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: 310 How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear! Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go." 315 Beyond a mortal man impassioned far 325 330 Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum, pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set. : 'Tis dark quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet: “My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride! 335 Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil dyed? After so many hours of toil and quest, A famished pilgrim, saved by miracle. 340 Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel. 345 "Hark! 'tis an elfin-storm from faery land, -- Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be, For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, A chain-dropped lamp was flickering by each door; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; Like phantoms, to the iron porch they glide; 350 355 360 With a huge empty flagon by his side: The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, 365 The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. And they are gone: ay, ages long ago That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, 370 375 CHARLES LAMB A Dissertation upon Roast Pig (From Essays of Elia) Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this 5 day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Chofang, literally the Cook's Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which 10 I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a 15 great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry 20 antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of newfarrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the 25 utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, 30 and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? not from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the 35 negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He 40 burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted crackling! Again he felt 45 and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to 50 tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as 55 thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat 60 him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued. "You graceless whelp, what have you got there devour |