Read Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) Online
Authors: CHARLOTTE BRONTE,EMILY BRONTE,ANNE BRONTE,PATRICK BRONTE,ELIZABETH GASKELL
I stooped to pluck a rose that grew
Beside this window, waving then;
But back my little hand withdrew,
From some reproof of inward pain;
For
she who loved it
was not there
To check me with her dove-like eye,
And something bid my heart forbear
Her
favourite rosebud to destroy.
Was it that bell — that funeral bell,
Sullenly sounding on the wind?
Was it that melancholy knell
Which first to sorrow woke my mind?
I looked upon my mourning dress
Till my heart beat with childish fear,
And — frightened at my loneliness —
I watched, some well-known sound to hear.
But all without lay silent in
The sunny hush of afternoon,
And only muffled steps within
Passed slowly and sedately on.
I well can recollect the awe
With which I hastened to depart;
And, as I ran, the instinctive start
With which my mother’s form I saw,
Arrayed in black, with pallid face,
And cheeks and ‘kerchief wet with tears,
As down she stooped to kiss my face
And quiet my uncertain fears.
‘“She led me, in her mourning hood,
Through voiceless galleries, to a room,
‘Neath whose black hangings crowded stood,
With downcast eyes and brows of gloom,
My known relations; while — with head
Declining o’er my sister’s bed —
My father’s stern eye dropt a tear
Upon the coffin resting there.
My mother lifted me to see
What might within that coffin be;
And, to this moment, I can feel
The voiceless gasp — the sickening chill —
With which I hid my whitened face
In the dear folds of her embrace;
For hardly dared I turn my head
Lest its wet eyes should view that bed.
‘But, Harriet,’ said my mother mild,
‘Look at
your
sister and my child
One moment, ere her form be hid
For ever ‘neath its coffin lid!’
I heard the appeal, and answered too;
For down I bent to bid adieu.
But, as I looked, forgot affright
In mild and magical delight.
‘“There lay she then, as now she lies —
For not a limb has moved since then —
In dreamless slumber closed, those eyes
That never more might wake again.
She lay, as I had seen her lie
On many a happy night before,
When I was humbly kneeling by —
Whom she was teaching to adore:
Oh, just as when by her I prayed,
And she to heaven sent up my prayer,
She lay with flowers about her head —
Though formal grave-clothes hid her hair!
Still did her lips the smile retain
Which parted them when hope was high,
Still seemed her brow as smoothed from pain
As when all thought she could not die.
And, though her bed looked cramped and strange,
Her
too
bright cheek all faded now,
My young eyes scarcely saw a change
From hours when moonlight paled her brow.
And yet I felt — and scarce could speak —
A chilly face, a faltering breath,
When my hand touched the marble cheek
Which lay so passively beneath.
In fright I gasped, ‘Speak, Caroline!’
And bade my sister to arise;
But answered not her voice to mine,
Nor ope’d her sleeping eyes.
I turned toward my mother then
And prayed on her to call;
But, though she strove to hide her pain,
It forced her tears to fall.
She pressed me to her aching breast
As if her heart would break,
And bent in silence o’er the rest
Of one she could not wake:
The rest of one, whose vanished years
Her soul had watched in vain;
The end of mother’s hopes and fears,
And happiness and pain.
‘“They came — they pressed the coffin lid
Above my Caroline,
And then, I felt, for ever hid
My sister’s face from mine!
There was one moment’s wildered start —
One pang remembered well —
When first from my unhardened heart
The tears of anguish fell:
That swell of thought which seemed to fill
The bursting heart, the gushing eye,
While fades all
present
good or ill
Before the shades of things gone by.
All else seems blank — the mourning march,
The proud parade of woe,
The passage ‘neath the churchyard arch,
The crowd that met the show.
My place or thoughts amid the train
I strive to recollect, in vain —
I could not think or see:
I cared not whither I was borne:
And only felt that death had torn
My Caroline from me.
‘“Slowly and sadly, o’er her grave,
The organ peals its passing stave,
And, to its last dark dwelling-place,
The corpse attending mourners bear,
While, o’er it bending, many a face
‘Mongst young companions shows a tear.
I think I glanced toward the crowd
That stood in musing silence by,
And even now I hear the sound
Of some one’s voice amongst them cry —
‘I am the Resurrection and the Life —
He who believes in me shall never die!’
‘“Long years have never worn away
The unnatural strangeness of that day,
When I beheld — upon the plate
Of grim death’s mockery of state —
That well-known word, that long-loved name,
Now but remembered like the dream
Of half-forgotten hymns divine,
My sister’s name — my Caroline!
Down, down, they lowered her, sad and slow,
Into her narrow house below:
And deep, indeed, appeared to be
That one glimpse of eternity,
Where, cut from life, corruption lay,
Where beauty soon should turn to clay!
Though scarcely conscious, hotly fell
The drops that spoke my last farewell;
And wild my sob, when hollow rung
The first cold clod above her flung,
When glitter was to turn to rust,
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!’
‘“How bitter seemed that moment when,
Earth’s ceremonies o’er,
We from the filled grave turned again
To leave her evermore;
And, when emerging from the cold
Of damp, sepulchral air,
As I turned, listless to behold
The evening fresh and fair,
How sadly seemed to smile the face
Of the descending sun!
How seemed as if his latest race
Were with that evening run!
There sank his orb behind the grove
Of my ancestral home,
With heaven’s unbounded vault above
To canopy his tomb.
Yet lingering sadly and serene,
As for his last farewell,
To shine upon those wild woods green
O’er which he’d loved to dwell.
‘“I lost him, and the silent room,
Where soon at rest I lay,
Began to darken, ‘neath the gloom
Of twilight’s dull decay;
So, sobbing as my heart would break,
And blind with gushing eyes,
Hours seemed whole nights to me awake,
And day as ‘twould not rise.
I almost prayed that I might die —
But then the thought would come
That, if I did, my corpse must lie