The Night

THE night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow,

And the storm is fast descending

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

Emily Brontë

Remembrance

COLD in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!

Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Have I forgot, my only love, to love thee,

Severed at last by Time's all-wearing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

Over the mountains on Angora's shore,

Resting their wings, where heath and fern-leaves cover

That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers

From these brown hills have melted into Spring.

Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers

After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet love of youth, forgive if I forget thee

While the world's tide is bearing me along;

Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me,

Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong.

No other sun has brightened up my heaven,

No other star has ever shone for me;

All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,

All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when my days of golden dreams had perished,

And even Despair was powerless to destroy,

Then did I learn how existence might be cherished,

Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check my tears of useless passion,

Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine,

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

Down to that grave already more than mine!

And even now, I dare not let it languish,

Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,

How could I seek the empty world again?

Emily Brontë

Holyday

A LITTLE while, a little while,

The noisy crowd are barred away;

And I can sing and I can smile

A little while I've holyday!

Where wilt thou go, my harrased heart?

Full many a land invites thee now;

And places near and far apart

Have rest for thee, my weary brow.

There is a spot 'mid barren hills

Where winter howls and driving rain,

But if the weary tempest chills

There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,

And moonless bends the misty dome,

But what on earth is half so dear,

So longed for as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,

The dank moss dripping from the wall,

The garden walk with weeds o'ergrown,

I love them--how I love them all!

* * * * *

Yes, as I mused, the naked room,

The flickering firelight died away,

And from the midst of cheerless gloom

I passed to bright, unclouded day--

A little and a lone green lane

That opened on a common wide;

A distant, dreary, dim blue chain

Of mountains circling every side;

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,

So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air

And, deepening still the dream-like charm,

Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere--

That was the scene; I knew it well,

I knew the path-ways far and near

That, winding o'er each billowy swell,

Marked out the tracks of wandering deer.

Could I have lingered but an hour

It well had paid a week of toil,

But truth has banished fancy's power;

I hear my dungeon bars recoil--

Even as I stood with raptured eye,

Absorbed in bliss, so deep and dear,

My hour of rest had fleeted by

And given me back to weary care.

Emily Brontë

The Sun Has Set

THE sun has set, and the long grass now

Waves dreamily in the evening wind;

And the wild bird has flown from that old gray stone

In some warm nook a couch to find.

In all the lonely landscape round

I see no light and hear no sound,

Except the wind that far away

Come sighing o'er the healthy sea.

Emily Brontë

No Coward Soul is Mine

NO coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere;

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life--that in me has rest,

As I--undying Life--have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts--unutterably vain;

Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void;

Thou--Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Brontë

The Old Stoic

RICHES I hold in light esteem

And Love I laugh to scorn

And Lust of Fame was but a dream

That vanished with the morn--

And if I pray--the only prayer

Is--'Leave the heart that now I bear

And give me liberty.'

Yes, as my swift days near their goal

'Tis all that I implore--

In life and death a chainless soul

With courage to endure!

Emily Brontë

Shall Earth no more inspire thee

SHALL Earth no more inspire thee,

Thou lonely dreamer now?

Since passion may not fire thee

Shall Nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving

In regions dark to thee;

Recall its useless roving--

Come back and dwell with me.

I know my mountain breezes

Enchant and soothe the still--

I know my sunshine pleases

Despite thy wayward will.

When day with evening blending

Sinks from the summer sky,

I've seen thy spirit bending

In fond idolatry.

I've watched thee every hour--

I know my mighty sway--

I know my magic power

To drive thy griefs away.

Few hearts to mortals given

On earth so wildly pine,

Yet none would ask a Heaven

More like the Earth than mine.

Then let my winds caress thee--

Thy comrade let me be--

Since naught beside can bless thee,

Return and dwell with me.

Emily Brontë

If grief for grief can touch thee

IF grief for grief can touch thee,

If answering woe for woe,

If any truth can melt thee

Come to me now!

I cannot be more lonely,

More drear I cannot be!

My worn heart beats so wildly

'Twill break for thee--

And when the world despises--

When Heaven repels my prayer--

Will not mine angel comfort?

Mine idol hear?

Yes, by the tears I'm poured,

By all my hours of pain

O I shall surely win thee,

Beloved, again!

Emily Brontë

'Tis moonlight

'TIS moonlight, summer moonlight,

All soft and still and fair;

The solemn hour of midnight

Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending

Their breezy boughs on high,

Or stooping low are lending

A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers

A lovely form is laid;

Green grass and dew-steeped flowers

Wave gently round her head.

Emily Brontë

High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending

HIGH waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,

Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars,

Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,

Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,

Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,

Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

All down the mountain sides wild forests lending

One mighty voice to the life-giving wind,

Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending,

Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending,

Wider and deeper their waters extending,

Leaving a desolate desert behind.

Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,

Changing forever from midnight to noon;

Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,

Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,

Lighning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,

Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

Emily Brontë

Come hither, child

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.

Emily Brontë

Mild the mist upon the hill

MILD the mist upon the hill

Telling not of storms tomorrow;

No, the day has wept its fill,

Spent its store of silent sorrow.

O, I'm gone back to the days of youth,

I am a child once more,

And 'neath my father's sheltering roof

And near the old hall door

I watch this cloudy evening fall

After a day of rain;

Blue mists, sweet mists of summer pall

The horizon's mountain chain.

The damp stands on the long green grass

As thick as morning's tears,

And dreamy scents of fragrance pass

That breathe of other years.

Emily Brontë

Often rebuked, yet always back returning

OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning

To those first feelings that were born with me,

And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning

For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

Today, I will not seek the shadowy region;

Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;

And visions rising, legion after legion,

Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,

And not in paths of high morality,

And not among the half-distinguished faces,

The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:

It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?

More glory, and more grief, than I can tell:

The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling

Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

Emily Brontë