sheep-shearing, when they are clipt, and their wool woven by some dexterous hand into an archiepiscopal pall or pallium. If saints and saints' days were not things altogether beyond the pale of human reason, we might wonder how so bitter an enemy to the marriage state, as far as concerned herself, should ever be induced to reveal to curious maids and bachelors the forms of their future partners in wedlock. Yet so it was. "On St. Agnes night," says Aubrey, "take a row of pins and pull out every one, one after another, saying a pater-noster or our father, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." Fasting however, according to some authorities, was a requisite part of the ceremony, or perhaps if this were observed the pin-sticking might be dispensed with. Thus, in the old comedy of "Cupid's Whirligig," the alderman's daughter Nan tells her friend, that she could find in her heart "to pray nine times to the moone, and fast three Saint Agnes' Eves, so that I might bee sure to have him to my husband." So too Burton: "they'll give anything to know when they shall be married, how many husbands they shall have, by cromnyomantia, a kinde of divination with onions laid on the altar on Christmass Eve, or by fasting on St. Agnes' Eve or night, who shall be their first husband; or by amphitomantia, by beans in a cake, &c., to burn the same." We cannot close this antiquarian lore more agreeably than by giving some portions of Keats's poem of "The Eve of St. Agnes": St. Agnes' Eve? Ah, bitter chill it was ! The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, They told her how upon St. Agnes' Eve, Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline. Out went the taper as she hurried in, As though a tongueless nightingale should swell A casement high and triple arched there was, Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, As are the tiger-moth's deep damasked wings, 47 A shielded 'scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings, Full on the casement shone the wintry moon, Her vespers done Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. SNOW. We live in a land of dreams, in sooth, We dream, when the freshening showers descend, Who hath not dreamed in the falling snow- That comes from heaven like a dream of light, Like the pure and peaceful thoughts which come To come to earth in purity, Like all the gifts of God: Yet, like our purest thoughts of heaven, The loveliest thing is soonest marred- As the sweetest spirit earth e'er saw, 'Tis sad to see the truth that comes Like the Heaven-sent, stainless snow, Reveal the print of the ruthless foot, With its soil of sin and woe. But the holy sunshine comes to bless, And call it back to God. The stains of earth return to earth As the body returns to dust; But the snow-mist soars, with the light to heaven, Like the soul on the wings of trust. ELIZABETH MARIANNE STERLING. |