My whole frame quivered with joy, surprise, and the sensation of the unforeseen.

Like a living soul, like an incarnation of Nature, the song entered my prison-house.

Each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressing bird, upon my heart.

It bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like an odorous vapour; entered my soul like a long draught of clear spring-water; shone upon me like essential sunlight; soothed me like a mother's voice and hand.

Yet, as the clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed leaves, so to my weary, prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold, and its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed joys.