Analysis of Israfel
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 (Boston) – 1849 (Baltimore)
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 enamored 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
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!
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,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
Scheme | ABAAAAB CDDCEEFF GHGXHGH IJIKJK LBLLXL CBCBB MNNMN AAOAJAO |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01001011 111101 111101 10101 001011101 10110101 11111 10001 00101 00101 1011 11100110 10101010 1010 10010 01101010 00101001 1110 110111 111101 01001010 110101 1011101 1111010 110111 101101 0111010 1110001 11111 111 111 1101001 1101010 100101 0101 1110101 11111111 1010111 110111 1101111 10111010 101011010 00111011 101110 1111 11 110111 11111101 010100 101011111 1110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,748 |
Words | 255 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, 7 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 136 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 24, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 145 Views
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"Israfel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8449/israfel>.
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