Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/101

Rh A thousand thousand gleaming fires

Seemed kindling in the air;

A thousand thousand silvery 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 rung

To that strange minstrelsy,

The little glittering spirits sung,

OOr [sic] 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!