Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/169

Rh My life-long hope, first joy and last,

What I loved well, and clung to fast;

What I wished wildly to retain,

What I renounced with soul-felt pain;

What—when I saw it, axe-struck, perish—

Left me no joy on earth to cherish;

A man bereft—yet sternly now

I do confirm that Jephtha vow:

Shall I retract, or fear, or flee?

Did Christ, when rose the fatal tree

Before him, on Mount Calvary?

'Twas a long fight, hard fought, but won,

And what I did was justly done.

Yet, Helen! from thy love I turned,

When my heart most for thy heart burned;

I dared thy tears, I dared thy scorn—

Easier the death-pang had been borne.

Helen! thou mightst not go with me,

I could not—dared not stay for thee!

I heard, afar, in bonds complain

The savage from beyond the main;

And that wild sound rose o'er the cry

Wrung out by passion's agony;

And even when, with the bitterest tear

I ever shed, mine eyes were dim,

Still, with the spirit's vision clear,

I saw Hell's empire, vast and grim,

Spread on each Indian river's shore,

Each realm of Asia covering o'er.