Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (553 page)

CHAPTER XIII.

BRANWELL’S LATER POETICAL WORKS.

Branwell’s Poetical Work — Sketch of the Materials which he intended to use in the Poem of ‘Morley Hall’ — The Poem — The Subject left Incomplete — Branwell’s Poem, ‘The End of All’ — His Letter to Leyland asking an Opinion on his Poem, ‘Percy Hall’ — Observations — The Poem.

Branwell’s poetical work in this period, when his health was failing, is incomplete, for there remain two pieces from his hand, both of which are fragments only. The first of these is ‘Morley Hall,’ which he was writing for his friend Leyland, but which he never lived to finish. He designed it to be an epic, in several cantos, dealing with a succession of romantic episodes, of which an elopement that actually took place, as I have previously had occasion to mention, was the chief feature. The part he completed was the introductory canto, or rather a portion of it, which is given below; but, since this was a work into which he entered with much spirit, and which would have been a long and important one, had it been completed, it may not be amiss here to sketch briefly the materials with which he proposed to work.

Morley Hall, or all that remains of it, is situated in the parish of Leigh, in the county of Lancaster; and was the residence of two families in succession, which became allied by marriage, and attained some celebrity. The first family was that of Leyland, originally of the place of that name in Lancashire, and afterwards, for many generations preceding the reign of King Henry VIII., residing at Morley Hall.

In Henry VIII.’s time the mansion was owned by Sir William Leyland, or Leland, whose family consisted of Thomas, his son and heir, and his daughters Anne and Elizabeth, by his marriage with Anne, daughter and heiress of Allan Syngleton of Whitgill, in Craven, Esq. Living in great opulence at Morley, Sir William was visited by the learned antiquary, his friend, and probably his relative, John Leland. This writer says of his visit: ‘Cumming from Manchestre towards Morle, Syr William Lelande’s howse, I passid by enclosid grounde, … leving on the left hand a mile and more of, a fair place of Mr. Langforde’s caulled Agecroft…. Morle, Mr. Lelande’s Place, is buildid, saving the Fundation, of stone squarid that risith within a great Moote a vi foot above the water, al of tymbre, after the commune sort of building of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much Plesur of Orchardes, of great Varite of Frute and fair made Walkes and Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire.’
 
 

Sir William was succeeded by Thomas, his son, who had married Anne, daughter of Sir John Atherton, and had issue Robert, his son and heir,
 
 
and two daughters, Anne and Alice. Anne married Edward Tyldesley, of Tyldesley, with whom the legend, versified by Mr. Peters, and on which Branwell intended to write at greater length, alleges that she eloped. The tradition of this event still lingers at Morley Hall. It is said that when the attachment sprang up between Anne, the eldest daughter of Thomas Leyland, and Edward Tyldesley, the connection was forbidden by the lady’s father. It is further said that, regardless of this prohibition, a night was fixed upon for an elopement, and that, when the inmates of the house were buried in sleep, it was arranged she should tie a rope round her waist, the loose end of which she should throw across the moat to Tyldesley, who was to be in waiting, and, with another, should lower herself into the water, and be drawn to the land by him. The legend says this was successfully accomplished, and that the marriage was celebrated before the elopement was known to the family.
 
 

It is remarkable that, while Thomas Leyland had a legitimate son and heir in Robert Leyland, the manor-house of Morley and its demesnes passed into the family of Tyldesley by marriage alone, as if there had been no such person.

There are other stories relating to this family, of wild and weird interest, with which Branwell was acquainted; but this passing allusion is all that the scope of the present work will allow.

Of the family of Tyldesley of Morley was the brave Sir Thomas, a major-general in the royal army, who was slain at Wigan on the 25th of August, 1651. To this circumstance Branwell alludes in his poem. The fragment is as follows: —

MORLEY HALL,

LEIGH — LANCASHIRE.

‘When Life’s youth, overcast by gathering clouds

Of cares that come like funeral-following crowds,

Wearying of that which is, and cannot see

A sunbeam burst upon futurity,

It tries to cast away the woes that are

And borrow brighter joys from times afar.

For what our feet tread may have been a road

By horses’ hoofs pressed ‘neath a camel’s load;

But what we ran across in childhood’s hours

Were fields, presenting June with May-tide flowers:

So what was done and borne, if long ago,

Will satisfy our heart, though stained by tears of woe.

‘When present sorrows every thought employ,

Our father’s woes may take the garb of joy,

And, knowing what our sires have undergone,

Ourselves can smile, though weary, wandering on.

For if our youth a thunder-cloud o’ershadows,

Changing to barren swamps Life’s flowering meadows,

We know that fiery flash and bursting peal

Others, like us, were forced to hear and feel;

And while they moulder in a quiet grave,

Robbed of all havings — worthless all they have —

We still, with face erect, behold the sun —

Have bright examples in what has been done

By head or hand — and, in the times to come,

May tread bright pathways to our gate of doom.

‘So, if we gaze from our snug villa’s door,

By vines or honeysuckles covered o’er,

Though we have saddening thoughts, we still can smile

In thinking our hut supersedes the pile

Whose turrets totter ‘mid the woods before us,

And whose proud owners used to trample o’er us;

All now by weeds and ivy overgrown,

And touched by Time, that hurls down stone from stone.

We gaze with scorn on what is worn away,

And never dream about our own decay.

Thus, while this May-day cheers each flower and tree,

Enlivening earth and almost cheering me,

I half forget the mouldering moats of Leigh.

‘Wide Lancashire has changed its babyhood,

As Time makes saplings spring to timber wood;

But as grown men their childhood still remember,

And think of Summer in their dark December,

So Manchester and Liverpool may wonder,

And bow to old halls over which they ponder,

Unknowing that man’s spirit yearns to all

Which — once lost — prayers can never more recall.

The storied piles of mortar, brick, and stone,

Where trade bids noise and gain to struggle on,

Competing for the prize that Mammon gives —

Youth killed by toil and profits bought with lives —

Will not prevent the quiet, thinking mind

From looking back to years when Summer wind

Sang, not o’er mills, but round ancestral halls,

And, ‘stead of engine’s steam, gave dews from waterfalls.

‘He who by brick-built houses closely pent,

That show nought beautiful to sight or scent,

Pines for green fields, will cherish in his room

Some pining plant bereft of natural bloom;

And, like the crowds which yonder factories hold,

Withering ‘mid warmth, and in their spring-tide old,

So Lancashire may fondly look upon

Her wrecks fast vanishing of ages gone,

And while encroaching railroad, street, and mill

On every side the smoky prospect fill,

She yet may smile to see some tottering wall

Bring old times back, like ancient Morley Hall.

But towers that Leland saw in times of yore

Are now, like Leland’s works, almost no more —

The antiquarian’s pages, cobweb-bound,

The antique mansion, levelled with the ground.

‘When all is gone that once gave food to pride,

Man little cares for what Time leaves beside;

And when an orchard and a moat, half dry,

Remain, sole relics of a power passed by,

Should we not think of what ourselves shall be,

And view our coffins in the stones of Leigh.

For what within yon space was once the abode

Of peace or war to man, and fear of God,

Is now the daily sport of shower or wind,

And no acquaintance holds with human kind.

Some who can be loved, and love can give,

While brain thinks, pulses beat, and bodies live,

Must, in death’s helplessness, lie down with those

Who find, like us, the grave their last repose,

When Death draws down the veil and Night bids Evening close.

‘King Charles, who, fortune falling, would not fall,

Might glance with saddened eyes on Morley Hall,

And, while his throne escaped misfortune’s wave,

Remember Tyldesley died that throne to save.’

Branwell’s next poem of this period is entitled the ‘End of All,’ which is complete, and is one of the most pathetic he ever wrote. It constitutes a true picture of his mood, and illustrates, at this time, the sombre and troubled nature of his thoughts. He pourtrays, in shades of great depth, his reflections on the death of one dear to him, whose loss leaves his soul a blank and desolate void, an evil which nothing can alleviate or remove. But he dreams for a moment that a life of peril in far-off lands, and in battle, strife, and danger, that the ‘stony joys’ of solitary ambition, may shrine the memory of sorrows which cannot be destroyed. Yet, even from this cold dream, this cruel opiate of the heart, he is recalled by the groans of her who is dying, to the consciousness that, with her departure, all will go. The bereaved is Branwell himself, and his ‘Mary’ is doubtless the lady of his misplaced affection, over whose loss he still broods in melancholy and afflicted language, each pathetic chord vibrating with intense mental anguish, as he contemplates the future years of desolation in which he is left to wander tombward unaided and alone. Here, as in his other poems, the rhythmic sweetness of Branwell’s verse flows on in words well chosen to express the idea he intends to convey, which itself is worked out with great suggestiveness of power.