Enjoying.

Olden.

I know not how it falls on me,

This summer evening, hushed and lone;

Yet the faint wind comes soothingly

With something of an olden tone …

Emily Brontë

Fair.

I gazed upon the cloudless moon
And loved her all the night,
Till morning came and radiant noon,
And I forgot her light.

No, not forgot eternally
Beneath its mighty glare:
But could the day seem dark to me
Because the night was fair?

Emily Brontë

Joy.

Grimshaw, Roundhay Lake, Leeds, 1893

IN MEMORY of a HAPPY DAY in FEBRUARY

Blessed be Thou for all the joy

 My soul has felt today!

O let its memory stay with me

 And never pass away!

I was alone, for those I loved

 Were far away from me,

The sun shone on the withered grass,

 The wind blew fresh and free.

Was it the smile of early spring

 That made my bosom glow?

'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor wind

 Could raise my spirit so.

Was it some feeling of delight,

 All vague and undefined?

No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,

 Expanding in the mind!

Was it a sanguine view of life

 And all its transient bliss–

A hope of bright prosperity?

 O no, it was not this!

It was a glimpse of truth divine

 Unto my spirit given

Illumined by a ray of light

 That shone direct from heaven!

I felt there was a God on high

 By whom all things were made.

I saw His wisdom and his power

 In all his works displayed.

But most throughout the moral world

 I saw his glory shine;

I saw His wisdom infinite,

 His mercy all divine.

Deep secrets of his providence

 In darkness long concealed

Unto the vision of my soul

 Were graciously revealed.

But while I wondered and adored

 His wisdom so divine,

I did not tremble at his power,

 I felt that God was mine.

I knew that my Redeemer lived,

 I did not fear to die;

Full sure that I should rise again

 To immortality.

I longed to view that bliss divine

 Which eye hath never seen,

Like Moses, I would see His face

Without the veil between.

Anne Brontë

Will.

Gruner, Nocturne, 1921

The night is darkening round me, 

The wild winds coldly blow; 

But a tyrant spell has bound me, 

And I cannot, cannot go. 

The giant trees are bending 

Their bare boughs weighed with snow; 

The storm is fast descending, 

And yet I cannot go. 

Clouds beyond clouds above me, 

Wastes beyond wastes below; 

But nothing drear can move me; 

Emily Brontë

Divine.

And as for the vague something --- was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression? --- that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver, and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare --- to divine it.

Charlotte Brontë

Glories.

To Imagination 

When weary with the long day's care,

And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While then canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it, that all around
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:

But thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death.
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

Emily Brontë