Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/311

Rh My couch lay in a ruined Hall,

Whose windows looked on the minster-yard,

Where chill, chill whiteness covered all,

Both stone and urn and withered sward.

The shattered glass let in the air

And with it came a wandering moan,

A sound unutterably drear,

That made me shrink to be alone.

One black yew-tree grew just below—

I thought its boughs so sad might wail;

Their ghostly fingers flecked with snow,

Rattled against an old vault's rail.

I listened—no; 'twas life that still

Lingered in some deserted heart:

O God! what caused the shuddering shrill,

That anguished, agonising start?

An undefined, an awful dream,

A dream of what had been before;

A memory whose blighting beam

Was flitting o'er me evermore.

A frightful feeling frenzy born—

I hurried down the dark oak stair;

I reached the door whose hinges torn

Flung streaks of moonshine here and there.