Day: June 11, 2022

Israfel

I.

 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
Whose heart-strings are a lute —
None sing so wild —   so well
As the angel Israfel —
And the giddy stars are mute.

II.

Tottering above
In her highest noon
The enamoured moon
Blushes with love —
While, to listen, the red levin
Pauses in Heaven.

III.

And they say (the starry choir
And all the listening things)
That Israfeli’s fire
Is owing to that lyre
With those unusual strings.

IV.

But the Heavens that angel trod
Where deep thoughts are a duty —
Where Love is a grown god —
Where Houri glances are ——
— Stay! turn thine eyes afar! —
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in yon star.

V.

Thou art not, therefore, wrong
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassion’d song:
To thee the laurels belong
Best bard, — because the wisest.

VI.

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit —
Thy grief — if any — thy love
With the fervor of thy lute —
Well may the stars be mute!

VII.

Yes, Heaven is thine: but this
Is a world of sweets and sours:
Our flowers are merely — flowers,
And the shadow of thy bliss
Is the sunshine of ours. 

VIII.

If I did dwell where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He would not sing one half as well —
One half as passionately,
And a stormier note than this would swell
From my lyre within the sky.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1831

Image by W. Heath Robinson

Impromptu

To Kate Carol

When from your gems of thought I turn
To those pure orbs, your heart to learn,
I scarce know which to prize most high —
The bright i-dea, or the bright dear-eye.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1845

Imitation

A dark unfathom’d tide
Of interminable pride —
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen.
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass’d on,
I care not tho’ it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1827

The Haunted Palace

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Snow-white palace — reared its head.
In the monarch thought’s dominion —
It stood there!
Never Seraph spread his pinion
Over fabric half so fair. 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow —
This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago —
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the rampart plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away. 

All wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well tuned law,
Round about a throne where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The sovereign of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door;
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate!
Ah, let us mourn — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!
And round about his home the glory,
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed. 

And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door;
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh — but smile no more.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1839

Image by Edmund Dulac