Page images
PDF
EPUB

"The thick leaves in my murmur

Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem."

I said, "Go, gentle singer,
Thy moving voice is kind:
But do not think its music

Has power to reach my mind.

Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow."

The wanderer would not heed me; Its kiss grew warmer still. "O come!" it sigh'd so sweetly; "I'll woo thee 'gainst thy will.

"Were we not friends from childhood?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou, the solemn night,
Whose silence wakes my song?

"And when my heart is resting

Beneath the church-aisle stone, I shall have time for mourning, And thou for being alone."

*

Ay-there it is! it wakes to-night
Deep feelings I thought dead ;

Strong in the blast-quick gathering light—

The heart's flame kindles red.

"Now I can tell by thy alter'd cheek,

And by thine eyes' full gaze,

And by the words thou scarce dost speak, How wildly fancy plays.

"Yes I could swear that glorious wind

[ocr errors]

Has swept the world aside,

Has dash'd its memory from thy mind
Like foam-bells from the tide :

"And thou art now a spirit pouring Thy presence into all :

[ocr errors]

The thunder of the tempest's rearing,

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 prison'd 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.

EMILY BRONTE.

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.

SONG.

EMILY BRONTE.

THE linnet in the rocky dells,
The moor-lark in the air,
The bee among the heather bells,
That hide my lady fair:

The wild deer browse above her breast;
The wild birds raise their brood;
And they her smiles of love caress'd
Have left her solitude.

I ween, that when the grave's dark wall

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
Uncheck'd through future years;

But where is all their anguish now,
And where are all their tears?

Well let them fight for honour's breath,

Or pleasure's shade pursue

The dweller in the land of death

Is changed and careless too.

And, if their eyes should watch and weep,
Till sorrow's 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 my lady's dreams.

The foregoing pieces were composed at twilight, in a schoolroom on the Continent, when the leisure of the evening play-hour brought back in full tide the thoughts of home. My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best loved was-liberty. One day, in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's hand-writing. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me, a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had also a peculiar music-wild, melancholy, and elevating. The fixed conviction I held, and

« PreviousContinue »