Emily Jane Brontë: The Complete Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Many a time, unheeded, thus
The reckless man would pray;
But something woke an answering flush
On his lady's brow today,
And her eye flashed flame, as she turned to speak,
In concord with her reddening cheek—

‘I've known a hundred kinds of love—
All made the loved one rue;
And what is thine, that it should prove,
Than other love, more true?

‘Listen, I've known a burning heart
To which my own was given
Nay, not in passion; do not start—
Our love was love from heaven:
At least, if heavenly love be born
In the pure light of childhood's morn
Long ere the poison-tainted air
From this world's plague-fen rises there:

‘That heart was like a tropic sun
That kindles all it shines upon;
And never Magian devotee
Gave worship half so warm as I
And never radiant bow could be
So welcome in a stormy sky
My soul dwelt with her day and night
She was my all sufficing light—
My childhood's mate, my girlhood's guide
My only blessing, only pride

‘But cursed be the very earth
That gave that fiend her fatal birth!
With her own hand she bent the bow
That laid my best affections low—
Then mocked my grief and scorned my prayers
And drowned my bloom of youth in tears—
Warnings, reproaches, both were vain;
What recked she of another's pain?

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My dearer self she would not spare—
From Honour's voice she turned his ear:
First made her love his only stay;
Then snatched the treacherous prop away!
Douglas, he pleaded bitterly—
He pleaded as you plead to me,
For life-long chains or timeless tomb
Or any, but an Exile's doom—
We both were scorned—both sternly driven
To shelter 'neath a foreign heaven;
And darkens o'er that dreary time
A wildering dream of frenzied crime—
I will not now those days recall;
The oath within that caverned hall
And its fulfilment, those you know:
We both together struck the blow:
But—you can never know the pain
That my lost heart did then sustain
When, severed wide by guiltless gore,
I felt that one could love no more!
Back maddening thought!—the grave is deep
Where my Amedeus lies asleep,
And I have long forgot to weep—

‘Now hear me, in these regions wild
I saw today my enemy
Unarmed, as helpless as a child
She slumbered on a sunny lea;
Two friends—no other guard had she;
And they were wandering on the braes;
And chasing in regardless glee,
The wild goat o'er his dangerous ways—
My hand was raised—my knife was bare;
With stealthy tread I stole along
But a wild bird sprang from his hidden lair
And woke her with a sudden song:
Yet moved she not; she only raised
Her lids and on the bright sun gazed

162

And uttered such a dreary sigh
I thought just then she should not die
Since living was such misery—
Now Douglas, for our hunted band—
For future joy and former woe
Assist me, with thy heart and hand
To send to hell my mortal foe—
Her friends fall first, that she may drain
A deeper cup of bitterer pain;
Yonder they stand and watch the waves
Dash in among the echoing caves—
Their farewell sight of earth and sea;
Come, Douglas, rise and go with me’—