Part 4 — EMILY BRONTË

THE linnet in the rocky dells, The moor-lark in the air, The bee among the heather bells That hide my lady fair: The wild deer browse above her breast; The wild birds raise their brood; And they, her smiles of love caress’d, Have left her solitude! I ween that when the grave’s dark wall Did first her form retain, They thought their hearts could ne’er recall The light of joy again. They thought the tide of grief would flow Uncheck’d through future years; But where is all their anguish now, And where are all their tears? Well, let them fight for honour’s breath, Or pleasure’s shade pursue— The dweller in the land of death Is changed and careless too. And if their eyes should watch and weep Till sorrow’s source were dry, She would not, in her tranquil sleep, Return a single sigh! Blow, west wind, by the lonely mound: And murmur, summer streams! There is no need of other sound To soothe my lady’s dreams.

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, Sever’d at last by Time’s all-severing wave? Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover Over the mountains, on that northern shore, Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover Thy noble heart for ever, ever more? Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers From those 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; Other desires and other hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong! No later light has lighten’d up my heaven, No second morn 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 the days of golden dreams had perish’d, And even Despair was powerless to destroy; Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d, Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy. Then did I check the tears of useless passion— Wean’d my young soul from yearning after thine; Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten Down to that tomb already more than mine. And, even yet, 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?

STILL let my tyrants know, I am not doom’d to wear Year after year in gloom and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty. He comes with Western winds, with evening’s wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars: Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire, And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire. Desire for nothing known in my maturer years, When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears: When, if my spirit’s sky was full of flashes warm, I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm. But first, a hush of peace—a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends. Mute music soothes my breast—unutter’d harmony That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me. Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels; Its wings are almost free—its home, its harbour found, Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound. O dreadful is the check—intense the agony— When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb—the brain to think again— The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain. Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless; And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine, If it but herald Death, the vision is divine.

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 wither’d weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main, To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by Thine infinity; So surely anchor’d 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 cease 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.