Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/368

312 And yet there is—or seems at least to be—

A general scheme of thought that colours all;

So though each one be different, all agree

In the same melancholy shade-like pall;

Even as the shadows look the same to me,

Though cast, I know, from many a varying wall

In this vast city—hut and temple sharing

In the same light, and the same darkness wearing.

Not that I deem all life a course of shade,

Nor all the world a waste of streets like these:

From youth to age a mighty change is made

As from this city to the southern seas.

For years through youthful hope our course is laid,

For years in sloth a sea without a breeze,

For years within some silent, shapeless cave,

Changing, and still the same, yet swiftly passing.

'Tis here 'tis there, 'tis nowhere—oh! my soul,

Is there no rest from such a fruitless chasing

Of the wild dreams that ever round me roll?

Each as it comes the parting thought defacing,

Yet all still hurrying to the self-same goal.

Gone! Can I catch them? — but their path alone

Stretching afar toward one for ever gone!

What have I now? The star that brightly shone