COME HITHER, CHILD

By Emily Brontë

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 thy father’s home.

Three times it rose, that seraph strain,

Then died, nor breathed again;

But still the words and still the tone

Dwell round my heart when all alone.