CHARLOTTE BRONTË
1816-1855
116. He Saw My Heart’s Woe
He saw my heart’s woe, discovered my soul’s anguish,
How in fever, in thirst, in atrophy it pined;
Knew he could heal, yet looked and let it languish,
To its moans spirit-deaf, to its pangs spirit-blind.
But once a year he heard a whisper low and dreary,
Appealing for aid, entreating some reply;
Only when sick, soul-worn and torture-weary,
Breathed I that prayer—heard I that sigh.
He was mute as is the grave, he stood stirless as a tower;
At last I looked up, and saw I prayed to stone:
I asked help of that which to help had no power,
I sought love where love was utterly unknown.
Idolater, I kneeled to an idol cut in rock,
I might have slashed my flesh and drawn my heart’s best blood,
The Granite God had felt no tenderness, no shock;
My Baal had not seen nor heard nor understood.
In dark remorse I rose. I rose in darker shame,
Self-condemned I withdrew to an exile from my kind;
A solitude I sought where mortal never came,
Hoping in its wilds forgetfulness to find.
Now, Heaven, heal the wound which I still deeply feel;
Thy glorious hosts look not in scorn on our poor race;
Thy King eternal doth no iron judgement deal
On suffering worms who seek forgiveness, comfort, grace
He gave our hearts to love, he will not love despise,
E’en if the gift be lost, as mine was long ago.
He will forgive the fault, will bid the offender rise,
Wash out with dews of bliss the fiery brand of woe;
And give a sheltered place beneath the unsullied throne,
Whence the soul redeemed may mark Time’s fleeting course around earth;
And know its trial overpast, its sufferings gone,
And feel the peril past of Death’s immortal birth.
117. Evening Solace
The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame’s or Wealth’s illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.
But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe,
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.
And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back—a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others’ sufferings seem,
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!
And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress—
Only a deeper impulse given,
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.
118. Speak of the North!
Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and trackless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.
Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem,
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.
And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.