Sunday installment

I'm going to follow Love2learn Mom's example and post poetry once a week. This will probably occur on Sundays, because I feel most poetic then. Here is a poem I enjoy every time I read it. It reminds me of the poem 'Only to Rise' in The Shadow of the Bear.

A Day Dream

By Emily Bronte

On a sunny brae alone I lay

On summer afternoon;

It was the marriage month of May

With her young lover, June.

From her mother’s heart seemed loath to part

That queen of bridal charms;

But her father smiled on the fairest child

He ever held in his arms.

The trees did wave their plumy crests,

The glad birds caroled clear;

And I, of all the wedding guests,

Was only sullen there.

There was not one but wished to shun

My aspect void of cheer;

The very grey rocks looking on

Asked, ‘What do you do here?’

And I could utter no reply-

In sooth I did not know

Why I had brought a clouded eye

To greet the general glow.

So resting on a heathy bank

I took my heart to me

And we together sadly sank

Into a reverie.

We thought-‘When winter comes again

Where will these bright things be?

All vanished like a vision vain-

And unreal mockery!

‘The birds that now so blithely sing-

Through deserts frozen dry,

Poor specters of the perished Spring

In famished troops will fly.

‘And why should we be glad at all?

The leaf is hardly green

Before a token of the fall

Is on its surface seen.’

Now whether it be really so

I never could be sure-

But as in fit of peevish woe

I stretched me on the moor

A thousand thousand glancing fires

Seemed kindling in the air-

A thousand thousand silver lyres

Resounded far and near.

Methought the very breath I breathed

Was full of sparks divine

And all my heather-couch was wreathed

By that celestial shine-

And while the wide Earth echoing rang

To their strange minstrelsy,

The little glittering spirits sang

Or seemed to sing to me,-

‘O mortal, mortal, let them die-

Let Time and Tears destroy,

That we may overflow the sky

With universal joy.

‘Let grief distract the sufferer’s breast

And Night obscure his way;

They hasten him to endless rest

And everlasting day.

‘To thee the world is like a tomb-

A desert’s naked shore;

To us-in unimagined bloom

It brightens more and more.

‘And could we lift the veil and give

One brief glimpse to thine eye

Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live

Because they live to die.’

The music ceased-the noonday Dream

Like dream of night withdrew,

But fancy still will sometimes deem

Her fond creation true.

Now, I know I once posted on Liber Parma about my preference of Charlotte Bronte's writing over her sister's, but Emily's poetry is far more eloquent in my eyes. Some is, alas, rather morbid and depressing, but there are hopeful poems as well. I've been meaning to read more of Anne Bronte's poetry, too, and there's always plenty of Chesterton to be absorbed, and re-read, I want to get through Dante's 'Divine Comedy'....Why was it called a Comedy anyway???