Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes

by Bronte Sisters

So great, so pure, a spell;

  And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,

  Where your cool radiance fell?

  Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,

  His fierce beams struck my brow;

  The soul of nature sprang, elate,

  But mine sank sad and low!

  My lids closed down, yet through their veil

  I saw him, blazing, still,

  And steep in gold the misty dale,

  And flash upon the hill.

  I turned me to the pillow, then,

  To call back night, and see

  Your worlds of solemn light, again,

  Throb with my heart, and me!

  It would not do — the pillow glowed,

  And glowed both roof and floor;

  And birds sang loudly in the wood,

  And fresh winds shook the door;

  The curtains waved, the wakened flies

  Were murmuring round my room,

  Imprisoned there, till I should rise,

  And give them leave to roam.

  Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;

  Oh, night and stars, return!

  And hide me from the hostile light

  That does not warm, but burn;

  That drains the blood of suffering men;

  Drinks tears, instead of dew;

  Let me sleep through his blinding reign,

  And only wake with you!

  THE PHILOSOPHER.

  Enough of thought, philosopher!

  Too long hast thou been dreaming

  Unlightened, in this chamber drear,

  While summer’s sun is beaming!

  Space-sweeping soul, what sad refrain

  Concludes thy musings once again?

  “Oh, for the time when I shall sleep

  Without identity.

  And never care how rain may steep,

  Or snow may cover me!

  No promised heaven, these wild desires

  Could all, or half fulfil;

  No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,

  Subdue this quenchless will!”

  “So said I, and still say the same;

  Still, to my death, will say —

  Three gods, within this little frame,

  Are warring night; and day;

  Heaven could not hold them all, and yet

  They all are held in me;

  And must be mine till I forget

  My present entity!

  Oh, for the time, when in my breast

  Their struggles will be o’er!

  Oh, for the day, when I shall rest,

  And never suffer more!”

  “I saw a spirit, standing, man,

  Where thou dost stand — an hour ago,

  And round his feet three rivers ran,

  Of equal depth, and equal flow —

  A golden stream — and one like blood;

  And one like sapphire seemed to be;

  But, where they joined their triple flood

  It tumbled in an inky sea

  The spirit sent his dazzling gaze

  Down through that ocean’s gloomy night;

  Then, kindling all, with sudden blaze,

  The glad deep sparkled wide and bright —

  White as the sun, far, far more fair

  Than its divided sources were!”

  “And even for that spirit, seer,

  I’ve watched and sought my life-time long;

  Sought him in heaven, hell, earth, and air,

  An endless search, and always wrong.

  Had I but seen his glorious eye

  ONCE light the clouds that wilder me;

  I ne’er had raised this coward cry

  To cease to think, and cease to be;

  I ne’er had called oblivion blest,

  Nor stretching eager hands to death,

  Implored to change for senseless rest

  This sentient soul, this living breath —

  Oh, let me die — that power and will

  Their cruel strife may close;

  And conquered good, and conquering ill

  Be lost in one repose!”

  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-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 lightened 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 perished,

  And even Despair was powerless to destroy;

  Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

  Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

  Then did I check the tears of useless passion —

  Weaned 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?

  A DEATH-SCENE.

  “O day! he cannot die

  When thou so fair art shining!

  O Sun, in such a glorious sky,

  So tranquilly declining;

  He cannot leave thee now,

  While fresh west winds are blowing,

  And all around his youthful brow

  Thy cheerful light is glowing!

  Edward, awake, awake —

  The golden evening gleams

  Warm and bright on Arden’s lake —

  Arouse thee from thy dreams!

  Beside thee, on my knee,

  My dearest friend, I pray

  That thou, to cross the eternal sea,

  Wouldst yet one hour delay:

  I hear its billows roar —

  I see them foaming high;

  But no glimpse of a further shore

  Has blest my straining eye.

  Believe not what they urge

  Of Eden isles beyond;

  Turn back, from that tempestuous surge,

  To thy own native land.

  It is not death, but pain

  That struggles in thy breast —

  Nay, rally, Edward, rouse again;

  I cannot let thee rest!”

  One long look, that sore reproved me

  For the woe I could not bear —

  One mute look of suffering moved me

  To repent my useless prayer:

  And, with sudden check, the heaving

  Of distraction passed away;

  Not a sign of further grieving

  Stirred my soul that awful day.

  Paled, at length, the sweet sun setting;

  Sunk to peace the twilight breeze:

  Summer dews fell softly, wetting

  Glen, and glade, and silent trees.

  Then his eyes began to weary,

  Weighed beneath a mortal sleep;

  And their orbs grew strangely dreary,

  Clouded, even as they would weep.<
br />
  But they wept not, but they changed not,

  Never moved, and never closed;

  Troubled still, and still they ranged not —

  Wandered not, nor yet reposed!

  So I knew that he was dying —

  Stooped, and raised his languid head;

  Felt no breath, and heard no sighing,

  So I knew that he was dead.

  SONG.

  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 caressed,

  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

  Unchecked 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.

  ANTICIPATION.

  How beautiful the earth is still,

  To thee — how full of happiness?

  How little fraught with real ill,

  Or unreal phantoms of distress!

  How spring can bring thee glory, yet,

  And summer win thee to forget

  December’s sullen time!

  Why dost thou hold the treasure fast,

  Of youth’s delight, when youth is past,

  And thou art near thy prime?

  When those who were thy own compeers,

  Equals in fortune and in years,

  Have seen their morning melt in tears,

  To clouded, smileless day;

  Blest, had they died untried and young,

  Before their hearts went wandering wrong, —

  Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,

  A weak and helpless prey!

  ‘Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,

  And by fulfilment, hope destroyed;

  As children hope, with trustful breast,

  I waited bliss — and cherished rest.

  A thoughtful spirit taught me soon,

  That we must long till life be done;

  That every phase of earthly joy

  Must always fade, and always cloy:

  ‘This I foresaw — and would not chase

  The fleeting treacheries;

  But, with firm foot and tranquil face,

  Held backward from that tempting race,

  Gazed o’er the sands the waves efface,

  To the enduring seas —

  There cast my anchor of desire

  Deep in unknown eternity;

  Nor ever let my spirit tire,

  With looking for WHAT IS TO BE!

  “It is hope’s spell that glorifies,

  Like youth, to my maturer eyes,

  All Nature’s million mysteries,

  The fearful and the fair —

  Hope soothes me in the griefs I know;

  She lulls my pain for others’ woe,

  And makes me strong to undergo

  What I am born to bear.

  Glad comforter! will I not brave,

  Unawed, the darkness of the grave?

  Nay, smile to hear Death’s billows rave —

  Sustained, my guide, by thee?

  The more unjust seems present fate,

  The more my spirit swells elate,

  Strong, in thy strength, to anticipate

  Rewarding destiny!

  THE PRISONER.

  A FRAGMENT.

  In the dungeon-crypts idly did I stray,

  Reckless of the lives wasting there away;

  “Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!”

  He dared not say me nay — the hinges harshly turn.

  “Our guests are darkly lodged,” I whisper’d, gazing through

  The vault, whose grated eye showed heaven more gray than blue;

  (This was when glad Spring laughed in awaking pride;)

  “Ay, darkly lodged enough!” returned my sullen guide.

  Then, God forgive my youth; forgive my careless tongue;

  I scoffed, as the chill chains on the damp flagstones rung:

  “Confined in triple walls, art thou so much to fear,

  That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here?”

  The captive raised her face; it was as soft and mild

  As sculptured marble saint, or slumbering unwean’d child;

  It was so soft and mild, it was so sweet and fair,

  Pain could not trace a line, nor grief a shadow there!

  The captive raised her hand and pressed it to her brow;

  “I have been struck,” she said, “and I am suffering now;

  Yet these are little worth, your bolts and irons strong;

  And, were they forged in steel, they could not hold me long.”

  Hoarse laughed the jailor grim: “Shall I be won to hear;

  Dost think, fond, dreaming wretch, that I shall grant thy prayer?

  Or, better still, wilt melt my master’s heart with groans?

  Ah! sooner might the sun thaw down these granite stones.

  “My master’s voice is low, his aspect bland and kind,

  But hard as hardest flint the soul that lurks behind;

  And I am rough and rude, yet not more rough to see

  Than is the hidden ghost that has its home in me.”

  About her lips there played a smile of almost scorn,

  “My friend,” she gently said, “you have not heard me mourn;

  When you my kindred’s lives, MY lost life, can restore,

  Then may I weep and sue, — but never, friend, before!

  “Still, let my tyrants know, I am not doomed 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 — unuttered 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 gulph, it stoops and dares the final bound,

  “Oh I 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.
r />   “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!”

  She ceased to speak, and we, unanswering, turned to go —

  We had no further power to work the captive woe:

  Her cheek, her gleaming eye, declared that man had given

  A sentence, unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.

  HOPE.

  Hope Was but a timid friend;

  She sat without the grated den,

  Watching how my fate would tend,

  Even as selfish-hearted men.

  She was cruel in her fear;

  Through the bars one dreary day,

  I looked out to see her there,

  And she turned her face away!

  Like a false guard, false watch keeping,

  Still, in strife, she whispered peace;

  She would sing while I was weeping;

  If I listened, she would cease.

  False she was, and unrelenting;

  When my last joys strewed the ground,

  Even Sorrow saw, repenting,

  Those sad relics scattered round;

  Hope, whose whisper would have given

  Balm to all my frenzied pain,

  Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,

  Went, and ne’er returned again!

  A DAY DREAM.

  On a sunny brae alone I lay

  One summer afternoon;

  It was the marriage-time of May,

  With her young lover, June.

  From her mother’s heart seemed loath to part

  That queen of bridal charms,