To a Wreath of Snow
O transient voyager of heaven!
O silent sign of winter skies!
What adverse wind thy sail has driven
To dungeons where a prisoner lies?
Methinks the hands that shut the sun
So sternly from this mourning brow
Might still their rebel task have done
And checked a thing so frail as thou
They would have done it had they known
The talisman that dwelt in thee,
For all the suns that ever shone
Have never been so kind to me!
For many a week, and many a day
My heart was weighed with sinking gloom
When morning rose in mourning grey
And faintly lit my prison room
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poem by Emily Brontë (1837)
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The Bluebell
The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air :
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care.
There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear ;
The violet has a fragrant breath,
But fragrance will not cheer,
The trees are bare, the sun is cold,
And seldom, seldom seen ;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold,
And earth her robe of green.
And ice upon the glancing stream
Has cast its sombre shade ;
And distant hills and valleys seem
In frozen mist arrayed.
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poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
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Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee
The following little piece has no title; but in it the Genius of a solitary region seems to address his wandering and wayward votary, and to recall within his influence the proud mind which rebelled at times even against what it most loved.
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 thee 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
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poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
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No Coward Soul Is Mine
The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote:-
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
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poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
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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 Elbe 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.
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poem by Emily Brontë from The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908)
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Well Hast Thou Spoken
Well hast thou spoken, and yet not taught
A feeling strange or new;
Thou hast but roused a latent thought,
A cloud-closed beam of sunshine brought
To gleam in open view.
Deep down, concealed within my soul,
That light lies hid from men;
Yet glows unquenched--though shadows roll,
Its gentle ray cannot control--
About the sullen den.
Was I not vexed, in these gloomy ways
To walk alone so long?
Around me, wretches uttering praise,
Or howling o'er their hopeless days,
And each with Frenzy's tongue;--
A brotherhood of misery,
Their smiles as sad as sighs;
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poem by Emily Brontë
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The Elder's Rebuke
'Listen! When your hair, like mine,
Takes a tint of silver gray;
When your eyes, with dimmer shine,
Watch life's bubbles float away:
When you, young man, have borne like me
The weary weight of sixty-three,
Then shall penance sore be paid
For those hours so wildly squandered;
And the words that now fall dead
On your ear, be deeply pondered—
Pondered and approved at last:
But their virtue will be past!
'Glorious is the prize of Duty,
Though she be "a serious power";
Treacherous all the lures of Beauty,
Thorny bud and poisonous flower!
'Mirth is but a mad beguiling
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poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
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My Comforter
Well hast thou spoken, and yet not taught
A feeling strange or new;
Thou hast but roused a latent thought,
A cloud-closed beam of sunshine brought
To gleam in open view.
Deep down, concealed within my soul,
That light lies hid from men;
Yet glows unquenched—though shadows roll,
Its gentle ray cannot control—
About the sullen den.
Was I not vexed, in these gloomy ways
To walk alone so long?
Around me, wretches uttering praise,
Or howling o'er their hopeless days,
And each with Frenzy's tongue;—
A brotherhood of misery,
Their smiles as sad as sighs;
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poem by Emily Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
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Far, Far Away Is Mirth Withdrawn
Far, far away is mirth withdrawn
'Tis three long hours before the morn
And I watch lonely, drearily
So come thou shade commune with me
Deserted one ! thy corpse lies cold
And mingled with a foreign mould
Year after year the grass grows green
Above the dust where thou hast been.
I will not name thy blighted name
Tarnished by unforgotton shame
Though not because my bosom torn
Joins the mad world in all its scorn.
Thy phantom face is dark with woe
Tears have left ghastly traces there,
Those ceaseless tears ! I wish their flow
Could quench thy wild despair.
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poem by Emily Brontë from The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908)
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To Imagination
When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While then canst speak with such a tone!
So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.
What matters it, that all around
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?
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poem by Emily Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
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