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.
* And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who
has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.-Koran.
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 luteWell 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.
THE ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.
O! NOTHING earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-—
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed,
That, like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours—
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers—
Adorn yon world afar, afar-
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace-for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns-a temporary rest―
An oasis in desert of the blest.
Away-away-'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendour o'er th' unchained soul-
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destined eminence—
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favoured one of God—
But, now, the ruler of an anchored realm,
She throws aside the sceptre-leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
* A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter-then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.
Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth.
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
She looked into Infinity-and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled-
Fit emblems of the model of her world-
Seen but in beauty-not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opalled air in colour bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers; of lilies such as reared the head
On the fair Capo Deucato,* and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of-deep pride-
Of her who loved a mortal-and so died.+
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Upreared its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnamed+
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it shamed
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond--and on a sunny flower
So like its own above, that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie :
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger-grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
* On Santa Maura-olim Deucadia.
This flower is much noticed by Leuwenhoeck and Tournefort. The
bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.
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