Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/261

Rh That lulling monotone did sing

Of broken rock and shaggy glen;

Of welcome for the moorcock's wing,

But not of wail for men!

Nothing of heaven or earth to show

One sign of sympathising woe,

And nothing but that agony

In her now unconscious eye,

To weigh upon the labouring breast

And prove she did not pass at rest.

But he who watched in thought had gone,

Retracing back her lifetime flown;

Like sudden ghosts, to memory came

Full many a face, and many a name,

Full many a heart, that in the tomb,

He almost deemed, might have throbbed again

Had they but known her dreary doom,

Had they but seen their idol then,

A wreck of desolate despair,

Left to the wild birds of the air,

And mountain winds and rain!

For him—no tear his stern eye shed

As he looked down upon the dead.

'Wild morn,' he thought, 'and doubtful noon;

But yet it was a glorious sun,

Though comet-like its course was run;

That sun should never have been given

To burn and dazzle in the heaven

Or night has quenched it far too soon!