A Lost Chord
A Lost Chord
Original Text
[Adelaide A. Procter], The Poems of Adelaide A. Procter intro. by Charles Dickens (Boston and Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., and Riverside Press, 1858): 119. PR 5191 A1 1858 Robarts Library
1SEATED one day at the Organ,
2 I was weary and ill at ease,
3And my fingers wandered idly
4 Over the noisy keys.
5I do not know what I was playing,
6 Or what I was dreaming then ;
7But I struck one chord of music,
8 Like the sound of a great Amen.
9It flooded the crimson twilight,
10 Like the close of an Angel's Psalm,
11And it lay on my fevered spirit
12 With a touch of infinite calm.
13It quieted pain and sorrow,
14 Like love overcoming strife ;
15It seemed the harmonious echo
16 From our discordant life.
17It linked all perplexéd meanings
18 Into one perfect peace,
19And trembled away into silence
20 As if it were loth to cease.
21I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
22 That one lost chord divine,
23Which came from the soul of the Organ,
24 And entered into mine.
25It may be that Death's bright angel
26 Will speak in that chord again,
27It may be that only in Heaven
28 I shall hear that grand Amen.
Publication Start Year
1858
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1996-2000.
Rhyme