Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Emily Brontë. 18181848738. Last Lines
NO coward soul is mine, | |
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: | |
I see Heaven’s glories shine, | |
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. | |
O God within my breast, | 5 |
Almighty, ever-present Deity! | |
Life—that in me has rest, | |
As I—undying Life—have power in Thee! | |
Vain are the thousand creeds | |
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; | 10 |
Worthless as wither’d weeds, | |
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main, | |
To waken doubt in one | |
Holding so fast by Thine infinity; | |
So surely anchor’d on | 15 |
The steadfast rock of immortality. | |
With wide-embracing love | |
Thy Spirit animates eternal years, | |
Pervades and broods above, | |
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. | 20 |
Though earth and man were gone, | |
And suns and universes cease to be, | |
And Thou were left alone, | |
Every existence would exist in Thee. | |
There is not room for Death, | 25 |
Nor atom that his might could render void: | |
Thou—Thou art Being and Breath, | |
And what Thou art may never be destroyed. |