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The Eve of Saint (St.) Mark is an English language poem by John Keats. It was left unfinished in 1819. It is related to his earlier poem written in the same year, The Eve of Saint Agnes.

Legend

St. Mark's Eve falls on April 24, the day before the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist. In northern English folklore, it was believed that if a person took up watch in the church porch on St. Mark's Eve one would see the spectres of those destined to die during the year pass into the church.

Keats also mentions the legend in his fairy story, the Cap and Bells; here too, the young woman is named Bertha.

Poem

Keats wrote this poem in February 1819, after The Eve of Saint Agnes but before La Belle Dame sans Merci. It opens, "Upon a Sabbath-day it fell;" and describes the streets of a cathedral town as the residents head to Evensong. Keats later described it as an attempt to create the "spirit of quietude". "I think I will give you the sensation of walking about an old country town in a coolish evening."

See also

• John Keats bibliography

References

1. "'The Eve of St. Mark' by John Keats". Berfrois. 13 August 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
2. ^ Ulmer, William A. (15 April 2017). John Keats: Reimagining History. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-47084-9.
3. The Poems of John Keats, Vol. 2, Notes = p. 525, (Ernest De Sélincourt, ed.) Dodd, Mead, 1905
4. Poems and Letters of John Keats, Houghton Mifflin, 1899, p. 196

Further reading

• Houghton, Walter E. (March 1946). "The Meaning of Keats's Eve of St. Mark". ELH. 13 (1): 64–78. doi:10.2307/2871500. JSTOR 2871500.

External links

• The Eve of St. Mark Wikisource
• An omnibus collection of Keats' poetry at Standard Ebooks

v t e John Keats
Bibliography	John Keats bibliography
Poetry collections	1819 odes (1819) "Ode on a Grecian Urn" "Ode on Indolence" "Ode on Melancholy" "Ode to a Nightingale" "Ode to Psyche" "To Autumn"
Short poems	"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1815) "To Kosciusko" (1816) "You say you love; but with a voice" (1817) "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" (1818) "When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be" (1818) "The Eve of Saint Mark" (1819) "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (1819) "Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art" (1820)
Long poems	Sleep and Poetry (1817) Endymion (1817) Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818) Hyperion (1818) Lamia (1819) The Eve of St. Agnes (1819) The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1819)
People	Fanny Brawne Charles Armitage Brown Charles Cowden Clarke Charles Wentworth Dilke Benjamin Haydon Leigh Hunt George Keats John Hamilton Reynolds Joseph Severn Percy Bysshe Shelley (Adonais) John Taylor
Related	Keats House Keats–Shelley Memorial House "negative capability" Keats and His Nightingale: A Blind Date Bright Star Statue of John Keats, Moorgate

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