Tottering above

II.

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.

III.

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.

IV.

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.

F

V.

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!

VI.

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!

VII.

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

VIII.

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.

ΤΟ

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.

IV.

The moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing At heart-ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing!

V.

The sickness, the nausea,

The pitiless pain,

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brain

With the fever called "Living"

That burned in my brain.