"Israfel" by Edgar Allen 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 enamored 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.

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.

This is the first poem I've posted that wasn't in my planner first - probably because the planner is handwritten and the poem is long and I am lazy. Israfel is one of my all-time favorite poems, though, and possibly my favorite Poe poem. It's meant different things to me at different times, including a yearning sadness that I can't sing, and also a mollified acceptance that this is "a world of sweets and sours" where "our flowers are merely - flowers".

I was reminded of it in class tonight because of Metamorphoses. There is a lengthy story within the story where an old woman tells of Cupid and Psyche, and Psyche at the end of the story achieves all that is possible, including divinity and happiness. But Lucius in the "main" story doesn't, although he gets an ending of his own. My prof suggested that Psyche's is the best possible fate of the soul, but Lucius has the best possible fate of an imperfect body.

Now, this doesn't completely work for me, because as a Latter-day Saint, I don't consider the body and soul to be in opposition to each other. Instead, the body and spirit are both necessary to get to what Psyche got. But still, as far as it pertains to this world, it reminded me of Israfel.