Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/97

Rh Tall plants of bright and spicy bloom

Around the threshold grow;

Their leaves and blossoms shade the room,

From that sun's deepening glow.

Why does she not a moment glance

Between the clustering flowers,

And mark in heaven the radiant dance

Of evening's rosy hours?

O look again! Still fixed her eye,

Unsmiling, earnest, still,

And fast her pen and fingers fly,

Urged by her eager will.

Her soul is in th' absorbing task;

To whom, then, doth she write?

Nay, watch her still more closely, ask

Her own eyes' serious light;

Where do they turn, as now her pen

Hangs o'er th' unfinished line?

Whence fell the tearful gleam that then

Did in their dark spheres shine?

The summer-parlour looks so dark,

When from that sky you turn,

And from th' expanse of that green park,

You scarce may aught discern.

Yet o'er the piles of porcelain rare,

O'er flower-stand, couch, and vase,

Sloped, as if leaning on the air,

One picture meets the gaze.