Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Emily Brontë. 18181848736. Remembrance
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, | |
Sever’d at last by Time’s all-severing wave? | |
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover | 5 |
Over the mountains, on that northern shore, | |
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover | |
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more? | |
Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers | |
From those brown hills have melted into spring: | 10 |
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers | |
After such years of change and suffering! | |
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, | |
While the world’s tide is bearing me along; | |
Other desires and other hopes beset me, | 15 |
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong! | |
No later light has lighten’d up my heaven, | |
No second morn has ever shone for me; | |
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given, | |
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee. | 20 |
But when the days of golden dreams had perish’d, | |
And even Despair was powerless to destroy; | |
Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d, | |
Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy. | |
Then did I check the tears of useless passion— | 25 |
Wean’d my young soul from yearning after thine; | |
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten | |
Down to that tomb already more than mine. | |
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, | |
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain; | 30 |
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, | |
How could I seek the empty world again? |