Classic Poem

Alcona, in its changing mood
My soul will sometimes overfly
The long, long years of solitude
That 'twixt our time of meeting lie.*

Hope and despair in turns arise
This doubting, dreading heart to move;
And now, 'mid smiles and bitter sighs,
Tell how I fear, tell how I love.

And now I say, " In Areon Hall — " *
(Alas that such a dream should come,
When well I know, whate'er befall,
That Areon is no more my1 home.)

Yet, let me say, " In Areon Hall*
The first faint red of morning shines,
And one right gladly to its call
The restless breath of grief resigns.

Her faded eye, her pallid face,
Would woo the soft, awaking wind;
All earth is breathing of the peace
She long has sought but cannot find.

How sweet it is to watch the mist
From that bright silent lake ascend,
And high o'er wood and mountain crest
With heaven's grey clouds as greyly blend.

How sweet it is to mark those clouds
Break brightly in the rising day;
To see the sober veil that shrouds
This summer morning melt away.

O sweet to some, but not to her;
Unm[ark]edst1 once at Nature's shrine,*
She now kneels down a worshipper,
A mad adorer, love, to thine.

The time is come when hope, that long
Revived and sank, at length is o'er;*
When faith in him, however strong,
Dare prompt her to believe no more.

The tears which day by day o'erflowed
Their heart-deep source begin to freeze;
And, as she gazes on the road
That glances through those spreading2 trees,

No throbbing flutter checks her breath
To mark a horseman hastening by;
Her haggard brow is calm as death,*
And cold like death her dreary eye.
The poem has not previously been included in an edition of Emily Jane Bronti's poems, but was printed in the Bronti Society Publications (1938), pp. 160-162.1 Or " thy. " 1 The letters within brackets are too indistinct to read in the manuscript and are, therefore, conjectural.2 Word cancelled in the manuscript and no word substituted.