Emily Brontë Quotes

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?

For that mist may break when the sun is high And this soul forget its sorrow And the rose ray of the closing day May promise a brighter morrow.

What use is it to slumber here: Though the heart be sad and weary? What use is it to slumber here Though the day rise dark and dreary?

But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends Mute music sooths my breast — unuttered harmony That I could never dream till earth was lost to me. Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels — Its wings are almost free, it is home, its harbor found; Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound — O, dreadful is the check — intense the agony When the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again, The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain. Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless; And robed in fires of Hell, or bright with heavenly shine If it but herald Death, the vision is divine —

He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars; Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire And visions rise and change which kills me with desire.

Then let my winds caress thee — Thy comrade let me be — Since naught beside can bless thee Return and dwell with me —

I've watched thee every hour — I know my mighty sway — I know my magic power To drive thy griefs away —

Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now? Since passion may not fire thee Shall Nature cease to bow? Thy mind is ever moving In regions dark to thee; Recall its useless roving — Come back and dwell with me —

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me— I will not, cannot go.

First melted off the hope of youth Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew And then experience told me truth In mortal bosoms never grew 'Twas grief enough to think mankind All hollow servile insincere But worse to trust to my own mind And find the same corruption there

I am the only being whose doom No tongue would ask no eye would mourn I never caused a thought of gloom A smile of joy since I was born In secret pleasure — secret tears This changeful life has slipped away As friendless after eighteen years As lone as on my natal day