ISRAFEL.* IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamored moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Pauses in Heaven. 10 15 "The * Israfel was first published in the collection of 1831, but was much elaborated and improved before it took final form. Poe's control over the subtler beauties of his art is nowhere more definitely shown, and Mr. Stedman is clearly right in maintaining that the more the poem is studied the rarer it seems. lyric phrasing is minstrelsy throughout-the soul of nature mastering a human voice." It may be doubted whether even in the lyrics of Shelley, which certainly influenced Poe, there is to be found any more complete expression of the highest poetic rapture than is contained in several of these stanzas. 4. Poe's own motto runs: "And the angel Israfel, whose heartstrings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. KORAN." [Really from Sale's Preliminary Discourse, iv. 71, through Moore's Lalla Rookh. The phrase "whose heartstrings," etc., was interpolated by Poe.] 12. Levin, better spelt "leven,” - an obsolete word for lightning. 14. Only six of these stars are conspicuous, hence the legend of the Lost Pleiad. See Harper's Classical Dictionary. And they say (the starry choir Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings, But the skies that angel trod, Therefore thou art not wrong, To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily live, and long! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit: Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely-flowers, 20 26. The houris are nymphs of paradise, according to the Mohammedans, beautiful, immortal virgins who attend upon the faithful after death. And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell 51. Compare with the close of Shelley's Skylark. [45 JOHN BURROUGHS. NATURE chose the spring of the year for the time of John Burroughs's birth. A little before the day when the wake-robin shows itself, that the observer might be on hand for the sight, he was born in Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, on the western borders of the Catskill Mountains; the precise date was April 3, 1837. Until 1863 he remained in the country about his native place, working on his father's farm, getting his schooling in the district school and neighboring academies, and taking his turn also as teacher. As he himself has hinted, the originality, freshness, and wholesomeness of his writings are probably due in great measure to the unliterary surroundings of his early life, which allowed his mind to form itself on unconventional lines, and to the later companionships with unlettered men, which kept him in touch with the sturdy simplicities of life. From the very beginnings of his taste for literature, the essay was his favorite form. Dr. Johnson was the prophet of his youth, but he soon transferred his allegiance to Emerson, who for many years remained his "master enchanter." To cure himself of too close an imitation of the Concord seer, which showed itself in his first magazine article, Expression, he took to writing his sketches of nature, and about this time he fell in with the writings of Thoreau, which doubtless confirmed and encouraged him in this direction. But of all authors and of all men, Walt Whitman, in his personality and as a literary force, seems to have made the profoundest impression upon Mr. Burroughs, though doubtless Emerson had a greater influence on his style of writing. |