The Heights of Haworth

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.

The linnet in the rocky dells
The moor lark in the air
The bee among the heather bells
That hide [a]1 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 graves dark wail
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 honours breath
Or pleasures shade pursue
The dweller in the land of death
Is changed and careless too

And, if their eyes should watch and weep
Till sorrows 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 [a]1 lady's dreams

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.

In the earth -- the earth -- thou shalt be laid,
A grey stone standing over thee;
Black mould beneath thee spread,
And black mould to cover thee.

"Well -- there is rest there,
So fast come thy prophecy;
The time when my sunny hair
Shall with grass roots entwined be."

But cold -- cold is that resting-place,
Shut out from joy and liberty,
And all who loved thy living face
Will shrink from it shudderingly,

"Not so. HERE the world is chill,
And sworn friends fall from me:
But THERE -- they will own me still,
And prize my memory."

Farewell, then, all that love,
All that deep sympathy:
Sleep on: Heaven laughs above,
Earth never misses thee.

Turf-sod and tombstone drear
Part human company;
One heart breaks only -- here,
But that heart was worthy thee!

If grief for grief can touch thee
If answering woe for woe
If any ruth can melt thee
Come to me now

I cannot be more lonely
More drear I cannot be
My worn heart throbs so wildly
'Twill break for thee

And when the world despises
When heaven repels my prayer
Will not my angel comfort?
Mine idol hear?

Yes by the tears I've poured
By all my hours of pain
Oh I will surely win thee
Beloved, again

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be

Today I will seek not the shadowy region
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear
And visions rising, legion after legion
Bring the unreal world too strangely near

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces
And not in paths of "high morality"
And not among the half distinguished faces
The clouded forms of long past history

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading
It vexes me to choose another guide
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief then I can tell
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure - secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere -
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there