XXII.
38 lines✦
ut went the taper as she hurried in ;Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died; 200She closed the door, she panted, all akinTo spirits of the air, and visions wide :No utter’d syllable, or woe betide !But to her heart her heart was voluble,Paining with eloquence her balmy side ; 205As though a tongueless nightingale should swellHer throat in vain, and die, heart-stified, in her dell. etree193. Like a mission’d spirit = like a spirit commissioned tosuccor the old woman.196. Matting. The poet should mean the rushes that were strewnover the medieval floor; see 2 Henry IV. V.v.1, Tuam. of the Shrew,IV. i. 48, etc.; but matting can scarcely denote them. Sce note on carpet, 198. Ring-dove. The cushat or wood-pigeon, is so called from awhite line that runs round its neck. * Jied. Many neut. verbs in Eng. have past part. used in an activesense. In this respect as in many others, the affinity between Englishand Greek is noticeable. Fed here = %dvyovcn. It Could not be trans-lated into Latin by any one word ; imagine such a form as fugite. Theonly verbs in Latin which have past participles with an active sense arewhat are termed deponent verbs: thus dead is exactly represented bymortuus, risen by ortus, started (on a journey) by profectus, ete. 202, [What do you think is meant by visions wide 7]204. Voluble. See it in its more literal sense in the form zaybilaccented on the penult., in Par. Lost, iv. 594: ‘‘Whether the prime orbIncredible how swift, had thither roll’dDiurnal : or this less volubil earthBy shorter flight to the East had left him there,” etc.Elsewhere Milton uses volvble.206. When the tongue-bereft Philomela of the old Greek story wastransformed into a nightingale, her tongue was restored her, or shemight have died such a death, THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 19 xXXIyV. A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
✦