ISRAFEL.*

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.

*And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the

But the skies that angel trod,

Where deep thoughts are a dutyWhere 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 fervour 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 Isra fel

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.

The sickness--the nausea-
The pitiless pain-

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brainWith the fever called "Living " That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures

That torture the worst
Has abated-the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the napthaline river

Of Passion accurst:-
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst:-

Of a water that flows,

With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few

Feet under groundFrom a cavern not very far

Down under ground.

And ah! let it never

Be foolishly said

That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;

For man never slept

In a different bed

And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit

Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting its rosesIts old agitations

Of myrtles and roses :

For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor

About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,

Commingled with pansies With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many

A dream of the truth

And the beauty of AnnieDrowned in a bath

Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,

And then I fell gently

To sleep on her breast

Deeply to sleep

From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,

She covered me warm, And she prayed to the angels To keep me from harm— To the queen of the angels To shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)

That you fancy me dead-
And I rest so contentedly,

Now in my bed,

(With her love at my breast)