Emily Jane Brontë: The Complete Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Come hither child—who gifted thee
With power to touch that string so well?
How daredst 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

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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