Six Poems of Emily Brontë

And like myself alone, wholly alone,
It sees the day's long sunshine glow;
And like myself it makes its moan
In unexhausted woe.

Give we the hills our equal prayer;
Earth's breezy hills and heaven's blue sea;
We ask for nothing further here
But our own hearts, the joy of liberty.

Could my hand unlock the chain,
How gladly would I watch it soar,
And never regret, and never complain
To see its shining eyes no more.

Tell me, tell me, smiling child,
What the past is like to thee?
"An autumn evening soft and mild
With a wind that sighs mournfully."

Tell me, what is the present hour?
"A green and flowery spray
Where a young bird sits gathering its power
To mount and fly away."

[Tell me, tell me,]1 what is the future, happy one?
"A sea beneath a cloudless sun;
 a mighty, glorious, dazzling sea
Stretching into infinity.

High waving heather, [beneath]1 stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars;
Darkness and glory rejoicingly [blending]2,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,
Man's spirit away from its [deep]3 dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

All down the mountain sides, wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the lifegiving wind;
Rivers their banks in the jubilee rending,
Fast thru the valleys a reckless course wending,
Wider and deeper their valleys 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,
Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

Sleep brings no joy to me,
Remembrance never dies;
My soul is given to misery,
And lives in sighs.

Sleep brings no rest to me;
The shadows of the dead,
My wakening eyes may never see,
Surround my bed.

Sleep brings no hope to me;
In soundest sleep they come,
And with their doleful imagery
Deepen the gloom.

Sleep brings no strength to me,
No power renewed to brave:
I only sail a wilder sea,
A darker wave.

Sleep brings no friend to me
To soothe and aid to bear;
They all gaze on - how scornfully!
And I despair.

Harp of wild and dreamy strain, when I touch thy strings,
Why sound out of longforgotten things?
Harp, in other, earlier days, I could sing to thee;
And not one of all my lays vexed my memory.

But now, if I awake a note that gave me joy before
Sounds of sorrow from thee float,
Changing evermore.

Yet, still steeped in memory's dyes, come sailing on,
Darkening my summer skies,
Shutting out my sun.

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 wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since Thou are Being and Breath,
And what THOU art may never be destroyed.