['And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.'Koran.]
FAIR Israfel, the sweetest singer of Heaven,
Shook back his burning curls, and from his seven
Stringed lute swept an impassioned prayer
So full of yearning that the very air
Celestial seemed surcharged with pleading love.
Importunate it throbbed and swelled above
Each diamond star-lit crevice of the skies
That oped to hearken, and from shimmering eyes
Let down their tear-spun rainbows for the song.
Eager it sped, and trembling pulsed along
Craving a shelter and a sanctuary
To weave anew on earth Heaven's harmony.
The dying sun had laid his hand of splendour
Upon the watching lake. Burning, yet tender,
His parting kiss enraptured all the night.
A mystic barque seemed in the golden light
Like some pale ghostly moth, that flies away
With fluttering wings out-drooped from circling day.
Onward she came, borne by the music's breath,
Unearthly as an image after death.
Rhythmic she swooned and dreamed,
And ever idly seemed
To float, as lilies float upon a stream
Whose slackened pulses halt awhile to dream.
Then to the soul of those whose eager ears
Were not clay-sealed, came music born of tears,
Far wingèd memories,
Angelic harmonies,
Haunting as dear dead loves for which men mourn,
Sweet as remembered joys to hearts forlorn.
The melody was fraught with dreams of Spring
Poured from uplifted throats of birds who sing
In silvery ecstasy of lover's sighs
And of the pansied darkness in love's eyes,
While over all the azure vaulted height
Of heaven circled a world's delight.
The silences made music. The still air
Breathed incense-laden consecrated prayer,
The grave and cowlèd Night knelt, listening,
And hushed the restless winds, that whispering,
Creep on the borderland of sleep.
Stilled were earth's murmurings deep.
The garrulous waves ceased playing by the shore
In bubbling laughter, and the leaves forbore
Their mirthful dancing, while the rustling grass
Sighed, and was silent, lest the song should pass.
The chords majestic swept the soul. Unrest
Was stilled to peace in fevered hearts distressed.
Wearied of alien ears, and solitude,
The deathless strain soared upwards, to the nude
And silvery sentinel of Paradise,
The patient Moon, that watches o'er the skies.
She turned the song to tears of gentle rain
That washed the earth in loveliness, and Pain
Which like a cold and cruel snake lies curled
In the grim arms of Night, himself unfurled
And sought a refuge in the depths of Hell.
But even there, these tears of Israfel
Found the sad eyes of those whom hope had fled
And as they wept, . . . so were they comforted.
