The Bronte Sisters: Selected Poems

by Bronte,Charlotte; Davies,Stevie

• ISBN13: 9780415940894
• ISBN10: 0415940893
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-04-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Although the Brontes have long fascinated readers of fiction and biography, their poetry was all too little known until this pioneering selection by Stevie Davies, the novelist and critic. Charlotte (1816-1855) is certainly a competent poet, and Anne (1820-1849) developed a distinctive voice, while Emily (1818-1848) is one of the great women poets in English. All three sisters, as Stevie Davies remarks in her introduction, were Romantic in inspiration, writing poetry of passionate personal feeling and of pure imagination. They share certain themes-liberty, loneliness, love-and harbor the myth of a lost paradise. Read together with their novels, the poems movingly elucidate the ideas around which the narratives revolve. And they surprise us out of our conventional notions of the sisters' personalities: Emily's rebelliousness, for example, is counterbalanced here by great tenderness. This selection of over seventy poems gives an idea of the variety of thought and feeling within eachauthor's work, and of the way in which the poems of these three remarkable writers parallel and reflect each other.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Brontes as Poets	9	(3)
Charlotte Bronte	12	(5)
Emily Jane Bronte	17	(6)
Anne Bronte	23	(8)
Poems
Charlotte Bronte
Lines Addressed to `The Tower of All Nations'	31	(1)
Written upon the Occasion of the Dinner Given to the Literati of the Glasstown	31	(1)
Home-Sickness	32	(1)
from Retrospection	33	(2)
The Wounded Stag	35	(1)
`Turn not now for comfort here'	36	(1)
`He could not sleep! - the couch of war'	36	(1)
The Teacher's Monologue	37	(3)
Diving	40	(1)
Gods of the Old Mythology	41	(2)
Parting	43	(1)
Preference	44	(2)
Morning	46	(1)
Master and Pupil	47	(5)
Reason	52	(1)
`He saw my heart's woe, discovered my soul's anguish'	53	(2)
On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte	55	(1)
On the Death of Anne Bronte	55	(4)
Poems
Emily Jane Bronte
`High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending'	59	(1)
`All day I've toiled, but not with pain'	59	(1)
`I am the only being whose doom'	60	(1)
`Only some spires of bright green grass'	61	(1)
`Now trust a heart that trusts in you'	61	(1)
A. G. A. (`Sleep brings no joy to me')	62	(1)
`I'll come when thou art saddest'	63	(1)
I'm happiest when most away'	63	(1)
Song (`King Julius left the south country')	64	(1)
`And now the house-dog stretched once more'	64	(2)
`Shed no tears o'er that tomb'	66	(1)
A. A. A. (`Sleep not, dream not; this bright day')	67	(1)
Song (`O between distress and pleasure')	68	(1)
`There was a time when my cheek burned'	69	(1)
```Well, some may hate, and some may scorn'''	69	(1)
`It is too late to call thee now'	70	(1)
`Riches I hold in light esteem'	71	(1)
`Shall Earth no more inspire thee'	71	(1)
`Aye, there it is! It wakes to-night'	72	(1)
How Clear She Shines!	73	(1)
`In the earth, the earth, thou shalt be laid'	74	(1)
A. G. A. to A. S. (`This summer wind, with thee and me')	75	(1)
`Come, walk with me'	76	(1)
To Imagination	77	(1)
`O thy bright eyes must answer now'	78	(2)
The Philosopher's Conclusion	80	(2)
R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida (`Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!')	82	(1)
`Death, that struck when I was most confiding'	83	(1)
`Ah! why, because the dazzling sun'	84	(2)
`How beautiful the Earth is still'	86	(1)
from Julian M. and A. G. Rochelle	87	(1)
`No coward soul is mine'	88	(1)
`Why ask to know what date, what clime?'	89	(1)
Stanzas (`Often rebuked, yet always back returning')	90	(5)
Poems
Anne Bronte
A Voice from the Dungeon	95	(1)
The North Wind	96	(2)
Verses to a Child	98	(2)
Retirement	100	(1)
Despondency	100	(1)
To Cowper	101	(2)
A Word to the `Elect'	103	(2)
Past Days	105	(1)
A Reminiscence	106	(1)
A Prayer	106	(1)
Night	107	(1)
Dreams	107	(1)
If This be All	108	(1)
Song (`We know where deepest lies the snow')	109	(1)
Song (`Come to the banquet; triumph in your songs!')	110	(1)
Oh, They Have Robbed Me of the Hope	111	(1)
Domestic Peace	112	(1)
Severed and Gone	113	(2)
Farewell to Thee! But Not Farewell	115	(1)
Last Lines	116	(3)
Notes	119