St Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.

When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade, Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.

Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence-- Some to kill canters in the musk-rose buds, Some war with reremice for their leathren wings, To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.

The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry, Portends strange things, old women say; Stops every fool that passes by, And frights the school-boy from his play.

It is the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman Which gives the stern'st good-night.