At dusk in the northern hills, the speaker says goodbye to his harp, calling it his “Minstrel.” He watches darkness descend over purple peaks, glow-worms light up, and deer vanish into cover. He asks the harp to forgive his clumsy playing and shrugs off any criticism—the music was never for them. The harp’s strains have seen him through private griefs, long weary nights when unspoken sorrows seemed unbearable. Surviving those dark times, he says, is the harp’s gift alone.
Then, as he walks away, a strange enchantment stirs. The strings seem to wake under a spirit’s fiery touch, then a fairy’s frolic. The notes dwindle, fainter and fainter down the dell, until only a stray witch-note arrives on the breeze. And then—silence. The farewell is final, leaving behind a quiet haunted by music that’s no longer there.