The Eve of St Agnes

Chambers held barbarian hordes

Chambers - confinement, either self-discovery or a trap

Held - prepared to attack him, holding the hordes back

Barbarian - a person from an alien land, uncivilised, violent

Hordes - contrast parties

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again

Rose - love, passion, sensuality

Flowers was the 16th century term for menstrual blood, also the reproductive part of the plant

Porphyro's passion was described as a full-blown rose earlier

Shutting shows sexual displeasure

He took her hollow lute, tumultuous

Hollow like his intentions

Lute - yonic, represents lust, delicate sound like Madeline

Tumultuous - loud and disorderly, contrasts the fragile sound of a lute

Sound disorientates Madeline

The blisses of her dream so pure and deep

Bliss - perfect happiness

Dreams - dreamt of Porphyro, contextual to St Agnes,

Pure - innocent unlike real life

Deep - deep sleep so he may have violated her

Deep - like a spell which Porphyro put on the nurse

Shows the vulnerability of Madeline compared to the calculating Porphyro