A child’s music startles the speaker, who demands to know how such a young soul can stir up thoughts she can’t suppress. The reply that follows comes not from the child but from the depth of memory. A woman recalls a night when she was barely six: slipping away from a festive house, she hid in a cold, dark room, utterly alone and wishing for death. The wind howled outside; inside, she wept and prayed. Then, through that desolate silence, a single note sounded—so pure and full it seemed to be the angel Gabriel calling her home. It rose three times and vanished. That brief, otherworldly sound never left her. The poem dwells in a hushed, mournful atmosphere, mixing childhood loneliness with a piercing ache for the lost beauty that once visited a grieving heart. What remains is the haunting presence of a moment that shaped a lifetime of solitary feeling.
Come hither, child — Summary
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.