Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/81

Rh The horrid shade, by slow degrees,

A beam of light defeated,

And then the roar of raving seas,

Fast, far, and faint, retreated.

And all was gone—gone like a mist,

Corse, billows, tempest, wreck;

Three children close to Gilbert prest

And clung around his neck.

Good night! good night! the prattlers said

And kissed their father's cheek;

'Twas now the hour their quiet bed

And placid rest to seek.

The mother with her offspring goes

To hear their evening prayer;

She nought of Gilbert's vision knows,

And nought of his despair.

Yet, pitying God, abridge the time

Of anguish, now his fate!

Though, haply, great has been his crime,

Thy mercy, too, is great.

Gilbert, at length, uplifts his head,

Bent for some moments low,

And there is neither grief nor dread

Upon his subtle brow.

For well can he his feelings task,

And well his looks command;

His features well his heart can mask,

With smiles and smoothness bland.