Riches I hold in light esteem (March 1, 1841)

R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida (March 3, 1845)

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-wearing wave? Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover Over the mountains on Angora's shore; Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover That 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: Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong. No other Sun has lightened up my heaven; No other Star 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?

The Gondal title of this poem was "Rosina Alcona to Julius Brenzaida."

 

Death, that struck when I was most confiding In my certain Faith of joy to be, Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing From the fresh root of Eternity! Leaves, upon Time's branch, were growing brightly, Full of sap and full of silver dew; Birds, beneath its shelter, gathered nightly; Daily, round its flowers, the wild bees flew. Sorrow passed and plucked the golden blossom, Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride; But, within its parent's kindly bosom, Flowed forever Life's restoring tide. Little mourned I for the parted Gladness, For the vacant nest and silent song; Hope was there and laughed me out of sadness, Whispering, "Winter will not linger long." And behold, with tenfold increase blessing Spring adorned the beauty-burdened spray; Wind and rain and fervent heat caressing Lavished glory on its second May. High it rose; no winge'd grief could sweep it; Sin was scared to distance with its shine: Love and its own life had power to keep it From all 'Wrong, from every blight but thine! Heartless ' Death, the young leaves droop and languish! Evening's gentle air may still restore– No: the morning sunshine mocks my anguish Time for me must never blossom more! Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish Where that perished sapling used to be; Thus, at least, its mouldering corpse will nourish That from which it sprung-Eternity.

Part I Heavy hangs the raindrop From the burdened spray; Heavy broods the damp mist On Uplands far away; Heavy looms the dull sky, Heavy rolls the sea - And heavy beats the young heart Beneath that lonely Tree - Never has a blue streak Cleft the clouds since morn - Never has his grim Fate Smiled since he was born - Frowning on the infant, Shadowing childhood's joy; Guardian angel knows not That melancholy boy. Day is passing swiftly Its sad and sombre prime; Youth is fast invading Sterner manhood's time - All the flowers are praying For sun before they close, And he prays too, unknowing, That sunless human rose! Blossoms, that the westwind Has never wooed to blow, Scentless are your petals, Your dew as cold as snow - Soul, where kindred kindness No early promise woke, Barren is your beauty As weed upon the rock - Wither, Brothers, wither, You were vainly given - Earth reserves no blessing For the unblessed of Heaven! Part II Child of Delight! with sunbright hair And seablue, sea-deep eyes; Spirit of Bliss, what brings thee here, Beneath these sullen skies? Thou shouldest live in eternal spring, Where endless day is never dim; Why, seraph, has thy erring wing Borne thee down to weep with him? "Ah, not from heaven am I descended, And I do not come to mingle tears; But sweet is day though with shadows blended; And, though clouded, sweet are youthful years - I, the image of light and gladness, Saw and pitied that mournful boy; And I swore to take his gloomy sadness, And give to him my beamy joy - "Heavy and dark the night is closing; Heavy and dark may its biding be; Better for all from grief reposing, And better for all who watch like me - "Guardian angel, he lacks no longer; Evil fortune he need not fear; Fate is strong–but Love is stronger, And more unsleeping than angel's care.

Charlotte Brontë wrote "Never was better stuff penned." in the manuscript of this poem.

How beautiful the Earth is still To thee–how full of Happiness; How little fraught with real ill Or shadowy 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, Equal in fortunes and in years, Have seen their morning melt in tears, To dull unlovely day; Blest, had they died unproved and young Before their hearts were wildly wrung, 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 Will 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 the 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, My Guide, sustained by thee? The more unjust seems present fate The more my Spirit springs elate Strong in thy strength, to anticipate Rewarding Destiny!

This poem is part of a larger Gondal poem which Emily revised for publication in 1846. She cut lines 1-12, 45-64, and 93-152. She added the concluding stanza, which starts with "She ceased to speak..." The original title of the poem is "Julian M. and A.G. Rochelle," the names of two lovers in the Gondal saga.

 

In the dungeon crypts idly did I stray, Reckless of the lives wasting there away; "Draw the ponderous bars; open, Warder stern!" He dare not say me nay–the hinges harshly turn. "Our guests are darkly lodged," I whispered, gazing through The vault whose grated eye showed heaven more grey than blue. (This was when glad spring laughed in awaking pride.) "Aye, 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, unweaned 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 which 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 parents' lives-my lost life, can restore, Then may I weep and sue-but never, Friend, before!" "Yet, tell them, Julian, all, 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 which 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 thunderstorm; "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 gulf it stoops and dares the final bound! "Oh, 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! "Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; go 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, he gleaming eye, declared that man had given A sentence unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.

This poem is part of the same Gondal poem from which Emily carved "The Prisoner. A Fragment." Charlotte Brontë took lines 1-12 of Emily's original poem, "Julian M. and A.G Rochelle," and added 8 lines of her own. Thus, the positive ending in which the watcher has a spiritual experience is Charlotte's and the watcher may be seen as Emily rather than a Gondal character. In Charlotte's version, it is hard to explain the guiding light in the window of stanze 2.

 

Silent is the House-all are laid asleep; One, alone, looks out o'er the snow wreaths deep; Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the 'wildering drifts and bends the groaning trees. Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor; Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door; The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far; I trim it well to be the Wanderer's guiding-star. Frown, my haughty sire; chide, my angry dame; Set your slaves to spy, threaten me with shame: But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know What angel nightly tracks that waste of winter snow. What I love shall come like visitant of air, Safe in secret power from lurking human snare; Who loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay. Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air: He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me; Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.

Charlotte Brontë notes, "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 0 God within my breast Almighty ever-present Deity Life, that in me hast 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 thy 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 moon 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 art Being and Breath And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Harold Bloom calls this Emily Brontë's finest poem; however, C.W. Hatfield, who edited her poems, speculates that Charlotte wrote or revised this poem. It first appeared in the 1850 edition of Emily's novel and poems; no manuscript version of this poem is known.

 

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: To-day, 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 gray 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 than I can tell: The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

Brontë: Table of Contents

Day 1	Overview of Emily Brontë Publication of Wuthering Heights & Contemporary Critics Later Critical response to Wuthering Heights Film Versions of Wuthering Heights
Day 2	Themes in Wuthering Heights The Narrator
Day 3	Wuthering Heights as Socio-Economic Novel Psychological Interpretations of Wuthering Heights Religion, Metaphysics, Mysticism and Wuthering Heights The Gothic and Wuthering Heights Romanticism and Wuthering Heights
Day 4	Love "I am Heathcliff" Sex Emily Bronte's Poetry

 

March 22, 2009