Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/26

16 The love withheld, she never sought,

She grew uncherished—learnt untaught;

To her the inward life of thought

Full soon was open laid.

I know not if her friendlessness

Did sometimes on her spirit press,

But plaint she never made.

The book-shelves were her darling treasure,

She rarely seemed the time to measure

While she could read alone.

And she too loved the twilight wood,

And often, in her mother's mood,

Away to yonder hill would hie,

Like her, to watch the setting sun,

Or see the stars born, one by one,

Out of the darkening sky.

Nor would she leave that hill till night

Trembled from pole to pole with light;

Even then, upon her homeward way,

Long—long her wandering steps delayed

To quit the sombre forest shade,

Through which her eerie pathway lay.

You ask if she had beauty's grace?

I know not—but a nobler face

My eyes have seldom seen;

A keen and fine intelligence,

And, better still, the truest sense

Were in her speaking mien.

But bloom or lustre was there none,

Only at moments, fitful shone