Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/204

Rh XXXVII

long will you remain? The midnight hour

Has tolled its last stroke from the minster tower.

Come, come; the fire is dead, the lamp burns low;

Your eyelids droop, a weight is on your brow;

Your cold hands hardly hold the weary pen:

Come; morn will give recovered strength again.

No; let me linger; leave me, let me be

A little longer in this reverie:

I'm happy now; and would you tear away

My blissful thought that never comes with day.

A vision dear, though false, for well my mind

Knows what a bitter waking waits behind.

Can there be pleasure in this shadowy room,

With windows yawning on intenser gloom,

And such a dreary wind so bleakly sweeping

Round walls where only you are vigil keeping?

Besides, your face has not a sign of joy,

And more than tearful sorrow fills your eye.

Look on those woods, look on that mountain lorn,

And think how changed they'll be to-morrow morn:

The doors of heaven expanding bright and blue;

The leaves, the green grass, sprinkled with the dew;

And white mists rising on the river's breast,

And wild birds bursting from their songless nest,