Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/47

Rh And while no groaning storm is heard,

Thou seem'st content it should be so,

But soon as comes a warning word

Of danger—straight thine anxious brow

Bends over me a mournful shade,

As doubting if my powers are made

To ford the floods of woe.

Know, then it is my spirit swells,

And drinks, with eager joy, the air

Of freedom—where at last it dwells,

Chartered, a common task to share

With thee, and then it stirs alert,

And pants to learn what menaced hurt

Demands for thee its care.

Remember, I have crossed the deep,

And stood with thee on deck, to gaze

On waves that rose in threatening heap,

While stagnant lay a heavy haze,

Dimly confusing sea with sky,

And baffling, even, the pilot's eye,

Intent to thread the maze—

Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast,

And find a way to steer our band

To the one point obscure, which lost,

Flung us, as victims, on the strand;—

All, elsewhere, gleamed the Gallic sword,

And not a wherry could be moored

Along the guarded land.