Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art, Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, 5 Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 10 To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree? TO HELEN Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicæan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. 5 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. 10 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! 15 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), 5 Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured moon 10 Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven) Pauses in Heaven. 15 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, 20 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, 25 Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star. Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest 30 An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily live, and long! The ecstasies above 35 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 40 Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.