Israfel

Edgar Allan Poe

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 all the 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.

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

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 unimpassion’d song:
  To thee the laurels belong
  Best bard, because the wisest!
  Merrily live, and long!

The extacies 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.

1836.