the thinking of the free spirit is the most important and of the maturity of love, referring to it as a "grown-up god." The Houri sit also in heaven, their beauty so strong that we can only catch glimpses of it in the stars. The Houri are another reference to Muslim mythology in that they are supposedly the virgins that await the followers of the Islamic faith in heaven.In the fifth stanza, Poe speaks directly to Israfel and echos his own thoughts as well. He says it is not wrong for Israfel to despise a song lacking of passion because he is the greatest of all the angels in the creation of a song. Poe too, hated "an unimpassioned song", which he felt was lacking in the works of Emerson and the Transcendentalists. At the end of the stanza he remarks "the wisest! Merrily live, and long!" The best and most passionate poetry would survive and be remembered by men, or only those songs that came from Israfel and the heart of the poet which he sings to.The ecstasies, in lines thirty-five through thirty-nine, are all of the emotions captured by Israfel with his lute. These are the emotions that are difficult, at times, for the poet to capture on paper and are distributed throughout heaven easily by Israfels' singing. The angels own sadness and love sent forth in paradise with such force that it is no wonder that the stars, themselves are mute. How then can a mere mortal interpret the singing of Israfel? If the heavenly bodies themselves are silent at the spectacle, what hope does the poet have? This is the frustration of Poe, his inability to completely understand the passion of Israfel, or his own whirlwind of emotions. I can presume, safely enough, that he felt he understood them better than the Transcendentalists.`Lines forty through fifty deal with Poe's bafflement over Israfel and his own inward struggle. He remarks of the perfectness of his muse's existence and the glorys of paradise before commenting on our on world, calling it " a worl...
