Classic Poem

Come hither, child—who gifted thee
With power to touch that string so well?
How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me,
Thoughts that I would, but cannot quell?

Nay, chide not, lady; long ago
I heard those notes in Ula's hall;
And, had I known they'd waken woe,
I'd weep, their music to recall.

But thus it was: one festal night,
When I was hardly six years old,
I stole away from crowds and light
And sought a chamber dark and cold.

I had no one to love me there;
I knew no comrade and no friend;
And so I went to sorrow where
Heaven, only heaven, saw me bend.

Loud blew the wind; 'twas sad to stay,
From all that splendour barred away.
I imaged in the lonely room
A thousand forms of fearful gloom;

And, with my wet eyes raised on high,
I prayed to God that I might die.
Suddenly, in that silence drear,
A sound of music reached my ear;

And then a note; I hear it yet,
So full of soul, so deeply sweet,
I thought that Gabriel's self had come
To take me to my father's home.

Three times it rose, that seraph-strain,
Then died, nor lived ever again;
But still the words and still the tone
Swell round my heart when all alone.
This poem is written on one side of a single leaf. Alongside it is written:
Alas, that she would bid adieu
To all the hopes her childhood knew.
Hushed is the harp
On the reverse is the unfinished poem, beginning “I'm standing in the forest now,” No. 110 (D3).