Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/23

Rh Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle,

Where the tall turret rises high,

And winds alone come near to rustle

The thick leaves where their cradles lie.

I sometimes think, when late at even

I climb the stair reluctantly,

Some shape that should be well in heaven,

Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me.

I fear to see the very faces,

Familiar thirty years ago,

Even in the old accustomed places

Which look so cold and gloomy now.

I've come, to close the window, hither,

At twilight, when the sun was down,

And Fear my very soul would wither,

Lest something should be dimly shown.

Too much the buried form resembling,

Of her who once was mistress here;

Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling,

Might take her aspect, once so dear.

Hers was this chamber; in her time

It seemed to me a pleasant room,

For then no cloud of grief or crime

Had cursed it with a settled gloom;

I had not seen death's image laid

In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed.