Edgar Allan Poe

Israfel

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.—KORAN.

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell  
 Whose heart-strings are a lute;  
None sing so wildly well  
As the angel Israfel,  
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),          
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell  
 Of his voice, all mute.  
 
Tottering above  
 In her highest noon,  
 The enamoured moon          
Blushes with love,  
 While, to listen, the red levin  
 (With the rapid Pleiads, even,  
 Which were seven)  
 Pauses in Heaven.        
 
And they say (the starry choir  
 And the other listening things)  
That Israfeli’s fire  
Is owing to that lyre  
 By which he sits and sings,    
The trembling living wire  
 Of those unusual strings.  
 
But the skies that angel trod,  
 Where deep thoughts are a duty,  
Where Love’s a grown-up God,    
Where the Houri glances are  
 Imbued with all the beauty  
Which we worship in a star.  
 
Therefore thou art not wrong,  
 Israfeli, who despisest        
An unimpassioned song;  
To thee the laurels belong,  
 Best bard, because the wisest:  
Merrily live, and long!  
 
The ecstasies above        
 With thy burning measures suit:  
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,  
 With the fervor of thy lute:  
 Well may the stars be mute!  
 
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this        
 Is a world of sweets and sours;  
 Our flowers are merely—flowers,  
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss  
 Is the sunshine of ours.  
 
If I could dwell        
Where Israfel  
 Hath dwelt, and he where I,  
He might not sing so wildly well  
 A mortal melody,  
While a bolder note than this might swell        
 From my lyre within the sky.
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