Happy Birthday, Edgar!

Today in Boston in 1809 was born a boy named Edgar Poe. His parents died of tuberculosis, and he was taken in by John Allan, acquiring his middle name - which he used when he began writing, though by then he had been cast off by his foster family for acquiring habits of life of which they didn't approve (moral: if you're a puritan in 19th century Boston, send your son to Harvard, not UVa!). Poe wrote light and humorous fiction at first, but he married his cousin only to learn that she too had tuberculosis, and as she slowly died his fiction became more and more macabre.

I thought to put up Eldorado, but I posted that one not so long ago. And the obvious choice is The Raven, but that one will doubtless be everywhere today. So, here's

Israfel

  
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.