Emily Brontë Details

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.

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.

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 kills me with desire.

Still, as I mused, the naked room, The alien firelight died away; And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright, unclouded day.

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm, So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air; And, deepening still the dreamlike charm, Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

When weary with the long day's care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again: Oh, my true friend! I am not lone, While thou canst speak with such a tone!

What matters it, that, all around, Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie, If but within our bosom's bound We hold a bright, untroubled sky, Warm with ten thousand mingled rays Of suns that know no winter days?

I trust not to thy phantom bliss, Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, Benignant Power; Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

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-severing wave?