Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/108

52 The mute bird sitting on the stone,

The dank moss dripping from the wall,

The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,

I love them—how I love them all!

Still, as I mused, the naked room,

The alien firelight died away;

And from the midst of cheerless gloom,

I passed to bright, unclouded day.

A little and a lone green lane

That opened on a common wide;

A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain

Of mountains circling every side.

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,

So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;

And, deepening still the dream-like charm,

Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

That was the scene, I knew it well;

I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,

That, winding o'er each billowy swell,

Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.

Could I have lingered but an hour,

It well had paid a week of toil;

But Truth has banished Fancy's power;

Restraint and heavy task recoil.