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.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
Note: in the Fisk work, this is sung by Heathcliff
¹ Fisk: "'neath"
² Fisk: "blended"
³ Fisk: "drear"

Text Authorship:

• by Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848), appears in Poems by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë Now for the First Time Printed, first published 1902 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "On the moors", 1970, published 1977 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Six Songs on Poems by Emily Brontë, no. 4, Southern/NY [sung text not yet checked]
• by Terry Fisk , "High waving heather, beneath stormy blasts bending", published 2002 [ voice, piano ], from Wuthering Heights, no. 42 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Pierre Herman Joubert (1927 - 2019), "Storm", published 1971 [ high voice and piano ], from Six Poems of Emily Brontë [sung text not yet checked]
• by Joan Littlejohn (b. 1937), "High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending", 1967-71, first performed 1972 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from The Heights of Haworth [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Mitchell (b. 1941), "Celebration", op. 24 no. 5 (1977), from The Earth, the Wind, and the Sky, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Victoria Brago

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 121