Poem by Emily Jane Brontë

* * *

A little while, a little while,
The noisy crowd are barred away;
And I can sing and I can smile
A little while I've holyday !

Where wilt thou go my harassed heart ?
Full many a land invites thee now;
And places near, and far apart
Have rest for thee, my weary brow -

There is a spot 'mid barren hills
Where winter howls and driving rain
But if the dreary tempest chills
There is a light that warms again

The house is old, the trees are bare
And moonless bends the misty dome
But what on earth is half so dear -
So longed for as the hearth of home ?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The garden-walk with weeds o'ergrown
I love them - how I love them all !

Shall I go there? or shall I seek
Another clime, another sky,
Where tongues familiar music speak
In accents dear to memory ?

Yes, as I mused, the naked room,
The flickering firelight died away
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day -

A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side -

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

That was the scene - I knew it well
I knew the pathways far and near
That winding o'er each billowy swell
Marked out the tracks of wandering deer

Could I have lingered but an hour
It well had paid a week of toil
But truth has banished fancy's power
I hear my dungeon bars recoil -

Even as I stood with raptured eye
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear
My hour of rest had fleeted by
And given me back to weary care

1. The Elder's Rebuke
2. Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning
3. High Waving Heather 'Neath Stormy Blasts Bending
4. Yes, Holy Be Thy Resting Place
5. The Visionary

Print

2415 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version