SOUTHERN POETS

EDGAR ALLAN POE

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicæan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

ΤΟ

ISRAFEL

"And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures."- - KORAN.

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 enamoured 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

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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!

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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,

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While a bolder note than this might swell 50
From my lyre within the sky.

LENORE

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll! - a saintly soul floats on the Stygian

river;

And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?

nevermore!

weep now or

See, on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love,

Lenore!