d 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 grow-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.

1836.

[Footnote 1:

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

'Koran'.]

* * * * *

TO----

I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath--little of Earth in it--
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:--
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that _you_ sorrow for _my_ fate
Who am a passer-by.

1829.

* * * * *

TO----

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,

Are lips--and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words--

Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined
Then desolately fall,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall--

Thy heart--_thy_ heart!--I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the truth that gold can never buy--
Of the baubles that it may.

1829.

* * * * *