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Stanza 25 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

  • Aaaand we're back to Madeline, who's kneeling down to say her prayers before going to bed. 
  • You thought Keats was laying it on thick with the pure-angel-virgin language before? Well, he drives it home even more now, as Madeline's made out to be an actual angel, complete with a halo (which is what that "glory" is, by the way).
  • That said, Keats isn't just characterizing Madeline as pure and pious, he's really going out of his way to paint a really recognizable picture of a kneeling saint. For a moment, it feels like the poem isn't a poem about a bunch of characters and their stories, but rather that it's a poem describing a picture (also called an ekphrastic poem). 
  • This whole praying-angel thing is apparently really working for Porphyro; he's getting overwhelmed by how totally pure she seems.
  • What do you make of the fact that Porphyro thinks that Madeline's not just pure in the traditional sense of being a virgin, but that she's also "free from mortal taint," or in other words divinely pure? It's almost like Porphyro doesn't quite grasp that Madeline is, in fact, human.