Littell's Living Age/Volume 160/Issue 2069/Schubert's Symphony in B Minor

at the awful airs that flow Across my soul; I hear crushed hopes that wail And flutter their brief wings and sudden fail — Wild tender cries that sing and dance and go In wonderful sweet troops. I cannot know What rends within my soul what unseen veil, And tells anew what strangely well-known tale Of infinite gladness and of infinite woe.

Was I long since thrust forth from Heaven's door, Where in that music I had borne my part? Or had this symphony its birth before The pulse of nature turned to laws of art? O what familiar voice, from what far shore, Calls to a voice that answers in my heart!