Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (532 page)

Although Brontë had, as we have seen, abandoned the hope of a high artistic career, he still clung to the practice of portrait-painting, and this gave him leisure to court the muse. The following are the earliest of his poems, of which the MSS. are in my possession; and these are fragments only. The first is a verse of eleven lines, dated January 23rd, 1838, which originally concluded a poem of sixty; —

‘There’s many a grief to shade the scene,

And hide the starry skies;

But all such clouds that intervene

From mortal life arise.

And — may I smile — O God! to see

Their storms of sorrow beat on me,

When I so surely know

That Thou, the while, art shining on;

That I, at last, when they are gone,

Shall see the glories of Thy throne,

So far more bright than now.’

This fragment, written by Branwell at the age of twenty-one, is characteristic of the early tone of his mind. His naturally amiable and susceptible disposition had soon become imbued with the spirit of Christian piety which surrounded his life. He was, too, at the time, full of noble impulses and high aspirations; but the shade of melancholy implanted in his constitution had begun to influence his writings. The following, which is the beginning of another poem, must have been written in some such thoughtful mood, though the title is not borne out in the portion I am able to give.

DEATH TRIUMPHANT.

May, 1838.

‘Oh! on this first bright Mayday morn,

That seems to change our earth to Heaven,

May my own bitter thoughts be borne,

With the wild winter it has driven!

Like this earth, may my mind be made

To feel the freshness round me spreading,

No other aid to rouse it needing

Than thy glad light, so long delayed.

Sweet woodland sunshine! — none but thee

Can wake the joys of memory,

Which seemed decaying, as all decayed.

‘O! may they bud, as thou dost now,

With promise of a summer near!

Nay — let me feel my weary brow —

Where are the ringlets wreathing there?

Why does the hand that shades it tremble?

Why do these limbs, so languid, shun

Their walk beneath the morning sun?

Ah, mortal Self! couldst thou dissemble

Like Sister-Soul! But forms refuse

The real and unreal to confuse.

But, with caprice of fancy, She

Joins things long past with things to be,

Till even I doubt if I have told

My tale of woes and wonders o’er,

Or think Her magic can unfold

A phantom path of joys before —

Or, laid beneath this Mayday blaze —

Ask, “Live I o’er departed days?”

Am I the child by Gambia’s side,

Beneath its woodlands waving wide?

Have I the footsteps bounding free,

The happy laugh of infancy?’

In this beautiful fragment we have the first passionate out-pouring of the self-imposed woes, which, proceeding from within, were thereafter to overspread and tincture with darkest colours every thought of Branwell’s mind. We see him here for a moment, standing in incipient melancholia, in what appears to him to be a desert of mental despondency; but, turning back with a fond affection for the past, and recalling, in plaintive words, the joys of ‘departed days.’ He seems here, indeed, to seek in the mysteries of the soul those pleasures and hopes which his mortal self cannot afford him. Branwell never appears to have forgotten, as I have previously suggested, the sad circumstances of the death of his sisters; and his solitary broodings over these visitations gave a morbid tone to his writings. It was in 1838 that he adopted the pseudonym of ‘Northangerland.’ His earlier poems, although occasionally showing some power, were not sufficiently gifted to add to the lustre of Brontë literature.

Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to Branwell’s literary abilities about this time, says: ‘In a fragment of one of his manuscripts which I have read, there is a justness and felicity of expression which is very striking. It is the beginning of a tale, and the actors in it are drawn with much of the grace of characteristic portrait-painting, in perfectly pure and simple language, which distinguishes so many of Addison’s papers in the “Spectator.” The fragment is too short to afford the means of judging whether he had much dramatic talent, as the persons of the story are not thrown into conversation. But, altogether, the elegance and composure of style are such as one would not have expected from this vehement and ill-fated young man. ‘He had,’ continues Mrs. Gaskell, ‘a stronger desire for literary fame burning in his heart than even that which occasionally flashed up in his sisters’.’ She says also that, ‘He tried various outlets for his talents … and he frequently contributed verses to the “Leeds Mercury.”‘ The latter statement, however, is incorrect, for nothing of Branwell’s appears in that journal.

CHAPTER XIV.

POEMS ON ‘CAROLINE.’

The Poetical bent of Branwell’s Genius — ’Caroline’s Prayer’ — ’On Caroline’ — ’Caroline’ — Spirit of these Early Effusions.

While Branwell was occupying his leisure as stated in the last chapter, and otherwise employing himself in a desultory way, he pursued the poetic bent of his genius, and sought the improvement of his diction and verse. Among the earliest of his poetical productions, the following are, perhaps, the best. They are distinguished by a similar train of thought and reflection, and by similar sentiments of piety and devotion, as also by the same gloom and sadness of mood, which pervade the poems of his sisters. Indeed, without knowing they were actually Branwell’s, we might easily believe them to be from the pen of Charlotte, Emily, or Anne.

The three following poetical essays are on ‘Caroline,’ under which name Branwell indicates his sister Maria; and, in two of them, he records his reminiscences of her death and funeral obsequies. The first of the three, which he has framed in the sentiments and words of a child, is entitled:

CAROLINE’S PRAYER,

OR THE CHANGE FROM CHILDHOOD TO WOMANHOOD.

‘My Father, and my childhood’s guide!

If oft I’ve wandered far from Thee;

E’en though Thine only Son has died

To save from death a child like me;

‘O! still — to Thee when turns my heart

In hours of sadness, frequent now —

Be Thou the God that once Thou wert,

And calm my breast, and clear my brow.

‘I’m now no more a little child

O’ershadowed by Thy mighty wing;

My very dreams seem now more wild

Than those my slumbers used to bring.

‘I further see — I deeper feel —

With hope more warm, but heart less mild;

And former things new shapes reveal,

All strangely brightened or despoiled.

‘I’m entering on Life’s open tide;

So — farewell childhood’s shores divine!

And, oh, my Father, deign to guide,

Through these wide waters, Caroline!’

The second is:

ON CAROLINE.

‘The light of thy ancestral hall,

Thy Caroline, no longer smiles:

She has changed her palace for a pall,

Her garden walks for minster aisles:

Eternal sleep has stilled her breast

Where peace and pleasure made their shrine;

Her golden head has sunk to rest —

Oh, would that rest made calmer mine!

‘To thee, while watching o’er the bed

Where, mute and motionless, she lay,

How slow the midnight moments sped!

How void of sunlight woke the day!

Nor ope’d her eyes to morning’s beam,

Though all around thee woke to her;

Nor broke thy raven-pinioned dream

Of coffin, shroud, and sepulchre.

‘Why beats thy breast when hers is still?

Why linger’st thou when she is gone?

Hop’st thou to light on good or ill?

To find companionship alone?

Perhaps thou think’st the churchyard stone

Can hide past smiles and bury sighs:

That Memory, with her soul, has flown;

That thou canst leave her where she lies.

‘No! joy
itself
is but a shade,

So well may its remembrance die;

But cares, life’s conquerors, never fade,

So strong is their reality!

Thou may’st forget the day which gave

That child of beauty to thy side,

But not the moment when the grave

Took back again thy borrowed bride.’

Here Branwell, though he has changed the form of expression and the circumstance of the loss, is still occupied with the same theme of family bereavement, with which Charlotte herself was so much impressed.

The following was intended as the first canto of a long poem. It also is entitled, ‘Caroline;’ and is the soliloquy of one ‘Harriet,’ who mourns for her sister, the subject of the poem, calling to mind her early recollection of the death and funeral of the departed one. It is extremely probable that Branwell made ‘Harriet’ a vehicle of expression for Charlotte or Emily, as he had adopted the name of ‘Caroline’ for Maria.

CAROLINE.

‘Calm and clear the day declining,

Lends its brightness to the air,

With a slanted sunlight shining,

Mixed with shadows stretching far:

Slow the river pales its glancing,

Soft its waters cease their dancing,

As the hush of eve advancing

Tells our toils that rest is near.

‘Why is such a silence given

To this summer day’s decay?

Does our earth feel aught of Heaven?

Can the voice of Nature pray?

And when daylight’s toils are done,

Beneath its mighty Maker’s throne.

Can it, for noontide sunshine gone,

Its debt with smiles repay?

‘Quiet airs of sacred gladness

Breathing through these woodlands wild,

O’er the whirl of mortal madness

Spread the slumbers of a child:

These surrounding sweeps of trees

Swaying to the evening breeze,

With a voice like distant seas,

Making music mild.

‘Woodchurch Hall above them lowering

Dark against the pearly sky,

With its clustered chimneys towering,

Wakes the wind while passing by:

And in old ancestral glory,

Round that scene of ancient story,

All its oak-trees, huge and hoary,

Wave their boughs on high.

‘‘Mid those gables there is one —

The soonest dark when day is gone —

Which, when autumn winds are strongest,

Moans the most and echoes longest.

There — with her curls like sunset air,

Like it all balmy, bright, and fair —

Sits Harriet, with her cheek reclined

On arm as white as mountain snow;

While, with a bursting swell, her mind

Fills with thoughts of “Long Ago.”

‘As from yon spire a funeral bell,

Wafting through heaven its mourning knell,

Warns man that life’s uncertain day

Like lifeless Nature’s must decay;

And tells her that the warning deep

Speaks where her own forefathers sleep,

And where destruction makes a prey

Of what was once this world to her,

But which — like other gods of clay —

Has cheated its blind worshipper:

With swelling breast and shining eyes

That seem to chide the thoughtless skies,

She strives in words to find relief

For long-pent thoughts of mellowed grief.

‘“Time’s clouds roll back, and memory’s light

Bursts suddenly upon my sight;

For thoughts, which words could never tell,

Find utterance in that funeral bell.

My heart, this eve, seemed full of feeling,

Yet nothing clear to me revealing;

Sounding in breathings undefined

Æolian music to my mind:

Then strikes that bell, and all subsides

Into a harmony, which glides

As sweet and solemn as the dream

Of a remembered funeral hymn.

This scene seemed like the magic glass,

Which bore upon its clouded face

Strange shadows that deceived the eye

With forms defined uncertainly;

That Bell is old Agrippa’s wand,

Which parts the clouds on either hand,

And shows the pictured forms of doom

Momently brightening through the gloom:

Yes — shows a scene of bygone years —

Opens a fount of sealed-up tears —

And wakens memory’s pensive thought

To visions sleeping — not forgot.

It brings me back a summer’s day,

Shedding like this its parting ray,

With skies as shining and serene,

And hills as blue, and groves as green.

‘“Ah, well I recollect that hour,

When I sat, gazing, just as now,

Toward that ivy-mantled tower

Among these flowers which wave below!

No — not these flowers — they’re long since dead,

And flowers have budded, bloomed, and gone,

Since those were plucked which gird the head

Laid underneath yon churchyard stone!