She scarcely heard

Woven into the very base of the Eve of St. Agnes is a mysterious strain of music that seems to both pervade and elude the story. The "music's golden tongue Flatter'd to tears" the Beadsman, and he "heard the prelude soft", but "another way he went", turning from joy to sit "among the rough ashes"(here). That night, Madeline "the music, yearning like a God in pain, She scarcely heard"(here). Later still in the story, she enters her bedchamber, and her heart was "as though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell"(here). Again, the music proves strangely heard yet unheard to Porphyro, whom "The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone: - The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone"(here). This is very reminiscent of a passage in Ode on a grecian urn which says, "Heard Melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter. . ."

Perhaps this mysterious fainting and fading music reflects Keats's own experience with his poetry. The music is joyful, poignant, sweet, and festive, yet it is continually snuffed out and ignored. It fades in and out as though wafting upon the wind from a distance or was penetrating from underneath many layers of barriers. There always seems to be a feeling of the music being untimely stifled and squelched. At the same time though, the strain of music is still absolutely essential in tying the story together. It is still potent although it is never quite allowed to come through in full force. Keats, in his attempt to establish himself as a poet, found that his lyrical rhymes continually ran into obstacles in transmission from especially from critics. The distant, weakened, interrupted quality of the floating music seems to parallel that experience of transmission, yet, just as the music still had power to stir the heart so does Keats's verses.