Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (423 page)
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Authors: CHARLOTTE BRONTE,EMILY BRONTE,ANNE BRONTE,PATRICK BRONTE,ELIZABETH GASKELL
BOOK: Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated)
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The whisper of its fall:
“An universal influence,
From thine own influence free;
A principle of life — intense —
Lost to mortality.
“Thus truly, when that breast is cold,
Thy prisoned soul shall rise;
The dungeon mingle with the mould —
The captive with the skies.
Nature’s deep being, thine shall hold,
Her spirit all thy spirit fold,
Her breath absorb thy sighs.
Mortal! though soon life’s tale is told;
Who once lives, never dies!”
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.
Love is like the wild rose-briar;
Friendship like the holly-tree.
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again,
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then, scorn the silly rose-wreath now,
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That, when December blights thy brow,
He still may leave thy garland green.
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
Of the golden-gifted time;
Love — a demon-meteor, wiling
Heedless feet to gulfs of crime.
“Those who follow earthly pleasure,
Heavenly knowledge will not lead;
Wisdom hides from them her treasure,
Virtue bids them evil-speed!
“Vainly may their hearts repenting.
Seek for aid in future years;
Wisdom, scorned, knows no relenting;
Virtue is not won by fears.”
Thus spake the ice-blooded elder gray;
The young man scoffed as he turned away,
Turned to the call of a sweet lute’s measure,
Waked by the lightsome touch of pleasure:
Had he ne’er met a gentler teacher,
Woe had been wrought by that pitiless preacher.
THE WANDERER FROM THE FOLD.
How few, of all the hearts that loved,
Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be moved
With such a sense of woe?
Too often thus, when left alone,
Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing tone
From thy strange history.
Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,
A glorious child again;
All virtues beaming from thine eyes
That ever honoured men:
Courage and truth, a generous breast
Where sinless sunshine lay:
A being whose very presence blest
Like gladsome summer-day.
O, fairly spread thy early sail,
And fresh, and pure, and free,
Was the first impulse of the gale
Which urged life’s wave for thee!
Why did the pilot, too confiding,
Dream o’er that ocean’s foam,
And trust in Pleasure’s careless guiding
To bring his vessel home?
For well he knew what dangers frowned,
What mists would gather, dim;
What rocks and shelves, and sands lay round
Between his port and him.
The very brightness of the sun
The splendour of the main,
The wind which bore him wildly on
Should not have warned in vain.
An anxious gazer from the shore —
I marked the whitening wave,
And wept above thy fate the more
Because — I could not save.
It recks not now, when all is over:
But yet my heart will be
A mourner still, though friend and lover
Have both forgotten thee!
WARNING AND REPLY.
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!
LAST WORDS.
I knew not ‘twas so dire a crime
To say the word, “Adieu;”
But this shall be the only time
My lips or heart shall sue.
That wild hill-side, the winter morn,
The gnarled and ancient tree,
If in your breast they waken scorn,
Shall wake the same in me.
I can forget black eyes and brows,
And lips of falsest charm,
If you forget the sacred vows
Those faithless lips could form.
If hard commands can tame your love,
Or strongest walls can hold,
I would not wish to grieve above
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