Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes

by Bronte Sisters

  Stifles a heart that scarce can beat,

  And, though so late and lone the hour,

  Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet;

  And on the pavement spread before

  The long front of the mansion grey,

  Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar,

  Which pale on grass and granite lay.

  Not long she stayed where misty moon

  And shimmering stars could on her look,

  But through the garden archway soon

  Her strange and gloomy path she took.

  Some firs, coeval with the tower,

  Their straight black boughs stretched o’er her head;

  Unseen, beneath this sable bower,

  Rustled her dress and rapid tread.

  There was an alcove in that shade,

  Screening a rustic seat and stand;

  Weary she sat her down, and laid

  Her hot brow on her burning hand.

  To solitude and to the night,

  Some words she now, in murmurs, said;

  And trickling through her fingers white,

  Some tears of misery she shed.

  “God help me in my grievous need,

  God help me in my inward pain;

  Which cannot ask for pity’s meed,

  Which has no licence to complain,

  “Which must be borne; yet who can bear,

  Hours long, days long, a constant weight —

  The yoke of absolute despair,

  A suffering wholly desolate?

  “Who can for ever crush the heart,

  Restrain its throbbing, curb its life?

  Dissemble truth with ceaseless art,

  With outward calm mask inward strife?”

  She waited — as for some reply;

  The still and cloudy night gave none;

  Ere long, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh,

  Her heavy plaint again begun.

  “Unloved — I love; unwept — I weep;

  Grief I restrain — hope I repress:

  Vain is this anguish — fixed and deep;

  Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss.

  “My love awakes no love again,

  My tears collect, and fall unfelt;

  My sorrow touches none with pain,

  My humble hopes to nothing melt.

  “For me the universe is dumb,

  Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind;

  Life I must bound, existence sum

  In the strait limits of one mind;

  “That mind my own. Oh! narrow cell;

  Dark — imageless — a living tomb!

  There must I sleep, there wake and dwell

  Content, with palsy, pain, and gloom.”

  Again she paused; a moan of pain,

  A stifled sob, alone was heard;

  Long silence followed — then again

  Her voice the stagnant midnight stirred.

  “Must it be so? Is this my fate?

  Can I nor struggle, nor contend?

  And am I doomed for years to wait,

  Watching death’s lingering axe descend?

  “And when it falls, and when I die,

  What follows? Vacant nothingness?

  The blank of lost identity?

  Erasure both of pain and bliss?

  “I’ve heard of heaven — I would believe;

  For if this earth indeed be all,

  Who longest lives may deepest grieve;

  Most blest, whom sorrows soonest call.

  “Oh! leaving disappointment here,

  Will man find hope on yonder coast?

  Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear,

  And oft in clouds is wholly lost.

  “Will he hope’s source of light behold,

  Fruition’s spring, where doubts expire,

  And drink, in waves of living gold,

  Contentment, full, for long desire?

  “Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed?

  Rest, which was weariness on earth?

  Knowledge, which, if o’er life it beamed,

  Served but to prove it void of worth?

  “Will he find love without lust’s leaven,

  Love fearless, tearless, perfect, pure,

  To all with equal bounty given;

  In all, unfeigned, unfailing, sure?

  “Will he, from penal sufferings free,

  Released from shroud and wormy clod,

  All calm and glorious, rise and see

  Creation’s Sire — Existence’ God?

  “Then, glancing back on Time’s brief woes,

  Will he behold them, fading, fly;

  Swept from Eternity’s repose,

  Like sullying cloud from pure blue sky?

  “If so, endure, my weary frame;

  And when thy anguish strikes too deep,

  And when all troubled burns life’s flame,

  Think of the quiet, final sleep;

  “Think of the glorious waking-hour,

  Which will not dawn on grief and tears,

  But on a ransomed spirit’s power,

  Certain, and free from mortal fears.

  “Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn,

  Then from thy chamber, calm, descend,

  With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn,

  But tranquil, fixed, to wait the end.

  “And when thy opening eyes shall see

  Mementos, on the chamber wall,

  Of one who has forgotten thee,

  Shed not the tear of acrid gall.

  “The tear which, welling from the heart,

  Burns where its drop corrosive falls,

  And makes each nerve, in torture, start,

  At feelings it too well recalls:

  “When the sweet hope of being loved

  Threw Eden sunshine on life’s way:

  When every sense and feeling proved

  Expectancy of brightest day.

  “When the hand trembled to receive

  A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near,

  And the heart ventured to believe

  Another heart esteemed it dear.

  “When words, half love, all tenderness,

  Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken,

  When the long, sunny days of bliss

  Only by moonlight nights were broken.

  “Till, drop by drop, the cup of joy

  Filled full, with purple light was glowing,

  And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high

  Still never dreamt the overflowing.

  “It fell not with a sudden crashing,

  It poured not out like open sluice;

  No, sparkling still, and redly flashing,

  Drained, drop by drop, the generous juice.

  “I saw it sink, and strove to taste it,

  My eager lips approached the brim;

  The movement only seemed to waste it;

  It sank to dregs, all harsh and dim.

  “These I have drunk, and they for ever

  Have poisoned life and love for me;

  A draught from Sodom’s lake could never

  More fiery, salt, and bitter, be.

  “Oh! Love was all a thin illusion

  Joy, but the desert’s flying stream;

  And glancing back on long delusion,

  My memory grasps a hollow dream.

  “Yet whence that wondrous change of feeling,

  I never knew, and cannot learn;

  Nor why my lover’s eye, congealing,

  Grew cold and clouded, proud and stern.

  “Nor wherefore, friendship’s forms forgetting,

  He careless left, and cool withdrew;

  Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting,

  Nor ev’n one glance of comfort threw.

  “And neither word nor token sending,

  Of kindness, since the parting day,

  His course, for distant regions bending,

  Went, self-contained and calm, away.

&
nbsp; “Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation,

  Which will not weaken, cannot die,

  Hasten thy work of desolation,

  And let my tortured spirit fly!

  “Vain as the passing gale, my crying;

  Though lightning-struck, I must live on;

  I know, at heart, there is no dying

  Of love, and ruined hope, alone.

  “Still strong and young, and warm with vigour,

  Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow;

  And many a storm of wildest rigour

  Shall yet break o’er my shivered bough.

  “Rebellious now to blank inertion,

  My unused strength demands a task;

  Travel, and toil, and full exertion,

  Are the last, only boon I ask.

  “Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming

  Of death, and dubious life to come?

  I see a nearer beacon gleaming

  Over dejection’s sea of gloom.

  “The very wildness of my sorrow

  Tells me I yet have innate force;

  My track of life has been too narrow,

  Effort shall trace a broader course.

  “The world is not in yonder tower,

  Earth is not prisoned in that room,

  ‘Mid whose dark panels, hour by hour,

  I’ve sat, the slave and prey of gloom.

  “One feeling — turned to utter anguish,

  Is not my being’s only aim;

  When, lorn and loveless, life will languish,

  But courage can revive the flame.

  “He, when he left me, went a roving

  To sunny climes, beyond the sea;

  And I, the weight of woe removing,

  Am free and fetterless as he.

  “New scenes, new language, skies less clouded,

  May once more wake the wish to live;

  Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded,

  New pictures to the mind may give.

  “New forms and faces, passing ever,

  May hide the one I still retain,

  Defined, and fixed, and fading never,

  Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain.

  “And we might meet — time may have changed him;

  Chance may reveal the mystery,

  The secret influence which estranged him;

  Love may restore him yet to me.

  “False thought — false hope — in scorn be banished!

  I am not loved — nor loved have been;

  Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished;

  Traitors! mislead me not again!

  “To words like yours I bid defiance,

  ‘Tis such my mental wreck have made;

  Of God alone, and self-reliance,

  I ask for solace — hope for aid.

  “Morn comes — and ere meridian glory

  O’er these, my natal woods, shall smile,

  Both lonely wood and mansion hoary

  I’ll leave behind, full many a mile.”

  GILBERT.

  I. THE GARDEN.

  Above the city hung the moon,

  Right o’er a plot of ground

  Where flowers and orchard-trees were fenced

  With lofty walls around:

  ‘Twas Gilbert’s garden — there to-night

  Awhile he walked alone;

  And, tired with sedentary toil,

  Mused where the moonlight shone.

  This garden, in a city-heart,

  Lay still as houseless wild,

  Though many-windowed mansion fronts

  Were round it; closely piled;

  But thick their walls, and those within

  Lived lives by noise unstirred;

  Like wafting of an angel’s wing,

  Time’s flight by them was heard.

  Some soft piano-notes alone

  Were sweet as faintly given,

  Where ladies, doubtless, cheered the hearth

  With song that winter-even.

  The city’s many-mingled sounds

  Rose like the hum of ocean;

  They rather lulled the heart than roused

  Its pulse to faster motion.

  Gilbert has paced the single walk

  An hour, yet is not weary;

  And, though it be a winter night

  He feels nor cold nor dreary.

  The prime of life is in his veins,

  And sends his blood fast flowing,

  And Fancy’s fervour warms the thoughts

  Now in his bosom glowing.

  Those thoughts recur to early love,

  Or what he love would name,

  Though haply Gilbert’s secret deeds

  Might other title claim.

  Such theme not oft his mind absorbs,

  He to the world clings fast,

  And too much for the present lives,

  To linger o’er the past.

  But now the evening’s deep repose

  Has glided to his soul;

  That moonlight falls on Memory,

  And shows her fading scroll.

  One name appears in every line

  The gentle rays shine o’er,

  And still he smiles and still repeats

  That one name — Elinor.

  There is no sorrow in his smile,

  No kindness in his tone;

  The triumph of a selfish heart

  Speaks coldly there alone;

  He says: “She loved me more than life;

  And truly it was sweet

  To see so fair a woman kneel,

  In bondage, at my feet.

  “There was a sort of quiet bliss

  To be so deeply loved,

  To gaze on trembling eagerness

  And sit myself unmoved.

  And when it pleased my pride to grant

  At last some rare caress,

  To feel the fever of that hand

  My fingers deigned to press.

  “‘Twas sweet to see her strive to hide

  What every glance revealed;

  Endowed, the while, with despot-might

  Her destiny to wield.

  I knew myself no perfect man,

  Nor, as she deemed, divine;

  I knew that I was glorious — but

  By her reflected shine;

  “Her youth, her native energy,

  Her powers new-born and fresh,

  ‘Twas these with Godhead sanctified

  My sensual frame of flesh.

  Yet, like a god did I descend

  At last, to meet her love;

  And, like a god, I then withdrew

  To my own heaven above.

  “And never more could she invoke

  My presence to her sphere;

  No prayer, no plaint, no cry of hers

  Could win my awful ear.

  I knew her blinded constancy

  Would ne’er my deeds betray,

  And, calm in conscience, whole in heart.

  I went my tranquil way.

  “Yet, sometimes, I still feel a wish,

  The fond and flattering pain

  Of passion’s anguish to create

  In her young breast again.

  Bright was the lustre of her eyes,

  When they caught fire from mine;

  If I had power — this very hour,

  Again I’d light their shine.

  “But where she is, or how she lives,

  I have no clue to know;

  I’ve heard she long my absence pined,

  And left her home in woe.

  But busied, then, in gathering gold,

  As I am busied now,

  I could not turn from such pursuit,

  To weep a broken vow.

  “Nor could I give to fatal risk

  The fame I ever prized;

  Even now, I fear, that precious fame

  Is too much compromised.”

  An inward trouble dims his eye,

  Some ridd
le he would solve;

  Some method to unloose a knot,

  His anxious thoughts revolve.

  He, pensive, leans against a tree,

  A leafy evergreen,

  The boughs, the moonlight, intercept,

  And hide him like a screen

  He starts — the tree shakes with his tremor,

  Yet nothing near him pass’d;

  He hurries up the garden alley,

  In strangely sudden haste.

  With shaking hand, he lifts the latchet,

  Steps o’er the threshold stone;

  The heavy door slips from his fingers —

  It shuts, and he is gone.

  What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul? —

  A nervous thought, no more;

  ‘Twill sink like stone in placid pool,

  And calm close smoothly o’er.

  II. THE PARLOUR.

  Warm is the parlour atmosphere,

  Serene the lamp’s soft light;

  The vivid embers, red and clear,

  Proclaim a frosty night.

  Books, varied, on the table lie,

  Three children o’er them bend,

  And all, with curious, eager eye,

  The turning leaf attend.

  Picture and tale alternately

  Their simple hearts delight,

  And interest deep, and tempered glee,

  Illume their aspects bright.

  The parents, from their fireside place,

  Behold that pleasant scene,

  And joy is on the mother’s face,

  Pride in the father’s mien.

  As Gilbert sees his blooming wife,

  Beholds his children fair,

  No thought has he of transient strife,

  Or past, though piercing fear.

  The voice of happy infancy

  Lisps sweetly in his ear,

  His wife, with pleased and peaceful eye,

  Sits, kindly smiling, near.

  The fire glows on her silken dress,