Oh, I defy thee, Hell, to show Father, I firmly do believe I know-for Death who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see Are flashing thro' EternityI do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human pathElse how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love,Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt-offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellised rays from Heaven. No mote may shun-no tiniest fly— The light'ning of his eagle eye— How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love's very hair? TO HELEN. HELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam. Lo! in yon brilliant window niche, THE VALLEY OF UNREST. Once it smiled a silent dell Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven. Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— They weep:-from off their delicate stems ISRAFEL.* IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell As the angel Israfel, And the giddy Stars (so legends tell), Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured Moon While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Pauses in Heaven. And they say (the starry choir Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings- * And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.-Koran. But the skies that angel trod, Which we worship in a star. Therefore, thou art not wrong, Best bard, because the wisest ! Merrily live and long! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suitThy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy luteWell may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this 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. |