Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/173

Rh Over Death, and Desolation,

Fireless hearths, and lifeless homes;

Over orphans' heartsick sorrows,

Patriot fathers' bloody tombs;

Over friends, that my arms never

Might embrace in love again;

Memory pondered until madness

Struck its poniard in my brain.

Deepest slumbers followed raving,

Yet, methought, I brooded still;

Still I saw my country bleeding,

Dying for a tyrant's will.

Not because my bliss was blasted,

Burned within the avenging flame:

Not because my scattered kindred

Died in woe, or lived in shame.

God doth know I would have given

Every bosom dear to me,

Could that sacrifice have purchased

Tortured Gondal's liberty!

But that at Ambition's bidding,

All her cherished hopes should wane,

That her noblest sons should muster,

Strive and fight and fall in vain;

Hut and castle, hall and cottage,

Roofless, crumbling to the ground;

Mighty heaven, a glad avenger

Thy eternal Justice found!