Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/320

264 XXIV

her tresses backward strayed

Look golden in the gleam,

But her wan lips and sunken cheek

And full eyes eloquently speak

Of sorrows gathering near,

Till those dark orbs o'erflowing fast

Are shadowed by her hand at last

To hide the streaming tear.

Oh! say not that her vivid dreams

Are but the shattered glass

Which but because more broken gleams

Move brightly in the grass.

Her spirit is the unfathomed lake

Whose face the sudden tempests break

To one tormented roar;

But as the wild winds sink in peace

All those disturbèd waves decrease

Till each far-down reflection is

As lifelike as before.

She thought when that confession crossed

Upon her dying mind,

'Twas sense and soul and memory lost,

Though feeling burned behind.

But that bright heaven has touched a chord

And that wide west has waked a word