Poetry By English Women

by R. E. ; Pritchard

O’er noble land and nobler river flowing,

  Through parting hills that swell upon that sky

  Still with the hue of dying daylight glowing,

  Swell with their plumy woods and dewy glades,

  Opening to moonlight in the deepest shades.

  Turn, lady, to thy halls, for singing shrill

  Again the gust descends – again the river [20]

  Frets into foam – I see thy dark eyes fill

  With large and bitter tears – thy sweet lips quiver.

  Diving

  Look into thought and say what thou dost see;

  Dive be not fearful how dark the waves flow;

  Sing through the surge, and bring pearls up to me;

  Deeper, ay, deeper; the fairest lie low.

  ‘I have dived, I have sought them, but none have I found;

  In the gloom that closed o’er me no form floated by;

  As I sank through the void depths, so black and profound,

  How dim died the sun and how far hung the sky.’

  ‘What had I given to hear the soft sweep

  Of a breeze bearing life through that vast realm of death! [10]

  Thoughts were untroubled and dreams were asleep:

  The spirit lay dreadless and hopeless beneath.’

  from Retrospection

  … Dream that stole o’er us in the time

  When life was in its vernal clime,

  Dream that still faster o’er us steals

  As the mild star of spring declining

  The advent of that day reveals,

  That glows in Sirius’ fiery shining:

  Oh! as thou swellest, and as the scenes

  Cover this cold world’s darkest features,

  Stronger each change my spirit weans

  To bow before thy god-like creatures. [10]

  When I sat ’neath a strange roof-tree

  With naught I knew or loved round me,

  Oh how my heart shrank back to thee,

  Then I felt how fast thy ties had bound me.

  That hour, that bleak hour when the day

  Closed in the cold autumn’s gloaming,

  When the clouds hung so bleak and drear and grey

  And a bitter wind through their folds was roaming,

  There shone no fire on the cheerless hearth,

  In the chamber there gleamed no taper’s twinkle. [20]

  Within, neither sight nor sound of mirth,

  Without, but the blast, and the sleet’s chill sprinkle.

  Then sadly I longed for my own dear home

  For a sight of the old familiar faces,

  I drew near the casement and sat in its gloom

  And looked forth on the tempest’s desolate traces.

  Ever anon that wolfish breeze

  The dead leaves and sere from their boughs was shaking,

  And I gazed on the hills through the leafless trees

  And felt as if my heart was breaking. [30]

  Where was I ere an hour had passed:

  Still listening to that dreary blast,

  Still in that mirthless lifeless room,

  Cramped, chilled and deadened by its gloom?

  No! thanks to that bright darling dream,

  Its power had shot one kindling gleam,

  Its voice had sent one wakening cry,

  And bade me lay my sorrows by,

  And called me earnestly to come,

  And borne me to my moorland home. [40]

  I heard no more the senseless sound

  Of task and chat that hummed around,

  I saw no more that grisly night

  Closing the day’s sepulchral sight.

  The vision’s spell had deepened o’er me:

  Its lands, its scenes were spread before me,

  In one short hour a hundred homes

  Had roofed me with their lordly domes,

  And I had sat by fires whose light

  Flashed wide o’er halls of regal height, [50]

  And I had seen them come and go

  Whose forms gave radiance to that glow,

  And I had heard the matted floor

  Of ante-room and corridor

  Shake to some half-remembered tread

  Whose haughty firmness woke even dread,

  As through the curtained portal strode

  Some spurred and fur-wrapped Demi-God,

  Whose ride through that tempestuous night

  Had added somewhat of a frown [60]

  To brows that shadowed eyes of light

  Fit to flash fire from Scythian crown,

  Till sweet salute from lady gay

  Chased that unconscious scowl away;

  And then the savage fur-cap doffed,

  The Georgian mantle laid aside,

  The satrap stretched on cushion soft,

  His loved and chosen by his side,

  That hand, that in its horseman’s glove

  Looked fit for naught but bridle rein, [70]

  Caresses now its lady-love

  With fingers white that show no strain

  They got in hot and jarring strife,

  When hate or honour warred with life, –

  Naught redder than the roseate ring

  That glitters fit for Eastern King […]

  EMILY BRONTË 1818–1848

  ‘High waving heather’

  High waving heather ’neath stormy blasts bending,

  Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars,

  Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,

  Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,

  Man’s spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,

  Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

  All down the mountain sides wild forests lending

  One mighty voice to the life-giving wind,

  Rivers their banks in the jubilee rending,

  Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending, [10]

  Wider and deeper their waters extending,

  Leaving a desolate desert behind.

  Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,

  Changing forever from midnight to noon;

  Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,

  Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,

  Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,

  Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

  Plead for Me

  O, thy bright eyes must answer now,

  When Reason, with a scornful brow,

  Is mocking at my overthrow;

  O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me

  And tell why I have chosen thee!

  Stern Reason is to judgement come

  Arrayed in all her forms of gloom;

  Wilt thou my advocate be dumb?

  No, radiant angel, speak and say

  Why I did cast the world away: [10]

  Why I have persevered to shun

  The common paths that others run

  And on a strange road journeyed on;

  Heedless alike of wealth and power –

  Of Glory’s wealth and Pleasure’s flower.

  These once indeed seemed beings divine

  And they perchance heard vows of mine

  And saw my offerings on their shrine –

  But, careless gifts are seldom prized

  And mine were worthily despised. [20]

  So with a ready heart I swore

  To seek their altar-stone no more,

  And gave my spirit to adore

  Thee, ever present phantom thing,

  My Slave, my Comrade, and my King!

  A Slave because I rule thee still,

  Incline thee to my changeful will

  And make thy influence good or ill –

  A Comrade – for by day and night

  Thou art my Intimate Delight – [30]

  My darling pain that wounds and sears

  And wrings a blessing out from tears

  By deadening me to earthly cares;<
br />
  And yet a King – though prudence well

  Have taught thy subject to rebel –

  And am I wrong, to worship where

  Faith cannot doubt, nor Hope despair,

  Since my own soul can grant my prayer?

  Speak, God of visions, plead for me,

  And tell why I have chosen thee! [40]

  Remembrance

  Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee!

  Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave:

  Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,

  Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

  Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

  Over the mountains on Angora’s shore;

  Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover

  That noble heart for ever, ever more?

  Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers

  From these brown hills have melted into spring – [10]

  Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers

  After such years of change and suffering!

  Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee

  While the World’s tide is bearing me along:

  Other desires and other Hopes beset me,

  Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong.

  No later light has lightened up my heavens;

  No second morn has ever shone for me;

  All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given –

  All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee. [20]

  But when the days of golden dreams had perished

  And even Despair was powerless to destroy,

  Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

  Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.

  Then did I check the tears of useless passion,

  Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;

  Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

  Down to that tomb already more than mine!

  And even yet, I dare not let it languish,

  Dare not indulge in Memory’s rapturous pain; [30]

  Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,

  How could I seek the empty world again?

  ‘No coward soul is mine’

  No coward soul is mine,

  No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere;

  I see Heaven’s glories shine

  And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear.

  O God within my breast,

  Almighty ever-present Deity

  Life, that in me hast rest

  As I, Undying Life, have power in Thee.

  Vain are the thousand creeds

  That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain, [10]

  Worthless as withered weeds

  Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

  To waken doubt in one

  Holding so fast by thy infinity,

  So surely anchored on

  The steadfast rock of Immortality.

  With wide-embracing love

  Thy spirit animates eternal years,

  Pervades and broods above,

  Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears. [20]

  Though Earth and moon were gone

  And suns and universes ceased to be

  And thou wert left alone

  Every Existence would exist in thee.

  There is not room for Death

  Nor atom that his might could render void

  Since thou art Being and Breath

  And what thou art may never be destroyed.

  Stanzas*

  Often rebuked, yet always back returning

  To those first feelings that were born with me,

  And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning

  For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

  Today, I will not seek the shadowy region;

  Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;

  And visions rising, legion after legion,

  Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

  I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,

  And not in paths of high morality, [10]

  And not among the half-distinguished faces

  The clouded forms of long-past history.

  I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:

  It vexes me to choose another guide:

  Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

  Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

  What have these lonely mountains worth revealing?

  More glory and more grief than I can tell:

  The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling

  Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell. [20]

  ANNE BRONTË 1820–1849

  Song

  We know where deepest lies the snow,

  And where the frost-winds keenest blow,

  O’er every mountain’s brow,

  We long have known and learnt to bear

  The wandering outlaw’s toil and care,

  But where we late were hunted, there

  Our foes are hunted now.

  We have their princely homes, and they

  To our wild haunts are chased away,

  Dark woods, and desert caves. [10]

  And we can range from hill to hill,

  And chase our vanquished victors still;

  Small respite will they find until

  They slumber in their graves.

  But I would rather be the hare

  That crouching in its sheltered lair

  Must start at every sound;

  That forced from cornfields waving wide

  Is driven to seek the bare hillside,

  Or in the tangled copse to hide, [20]

  Than be the hunter’s hound.

  JEAN INGELOW 1820–1897

  Sing high! Though the red sun dip,

  There yet is a day for me.

  Born in Boston, Lincolnshire; father was a merchant trader; brought up in strict Evangelical faith; moved to Ipswich, 1834; first recorded writing verse on a window-shutter, when aged fourteen. Poems, by Jean Ingelow (1863) went through thirty editions. Went in for lengthy romantic yarns of love, heroism and disaster, in vigorous verse. Knew Jane Taylor, Dora Greenwell and Christina Rossetti; never married; lived a pious, retired life in London suburbs; her brother William’s death was a great blow; buried in Brompton Cemetery.

  Poetical Works (London: Longmans Green, 1902); Maureen Peters, Jean Ingelow: Victorian Poetess (Ipswich: Boydell, 1972).

  from Divided

  A dappled sky, a world of meadows,

  Circling above us the black rooks fly

  Forward, backward; lo their dark shadows

  Flit on the blossoming tapestry.

  Flit on the beck, for her long grass parteth

  As hair from a maid’s bright eyes blown back;

  And lo, the sun like a lover darteth

  His flattering smile on her wayward track.

  Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather

  Till one steps over the tiny strand, [10]

  So narrow, in sooth, that still together

  On either brink we go hand in hand.

  The beck grows wider, the hands must sever.

  On either margin, our songs all done,

  We move apart, while she singeth ever,

  Taking the course of the stooping sun.

  He prays, ‘Come over’ – I may not follow;

  I cry, ‘Return’ – but he cannot come:

  We speak, we laugh, but with voices hollow;

  Our hands are hanging, our hearts are numb. [20]

  The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571*

  The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,

  The ringers ran by two, by three;

  ‘Pull, if ye never pulled before;

  Good ringers, pull your best,’ quoth he.

  ‘Play up, play up, O Boston bells!

  Ply all your changes,
all your swells,

  Play up “The Brides of Enderby”.’

  Men say it was a stolen tide –

  The Lord that sent it, He knows all;

  But in mine ears doth still abide [10]

  The message that the bells let fall:

  And there was nought of strange, beside

  The flights of mews and peewits pied

  By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

  I sat and spun within the door,

  My thread brake off, I raised mine eyes;

  The level sun, like ruddy ore,

  Lay sinking in the barren skies,

  And dark against day’s golden death

  She moved where Lindis wandereth, [20]

  My son’s fair wife, Elizabeth.

  ‘Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!’ calling,

  Ere the early dews were falling,

  Far away I heard her song.

  ‘Cusha! Cusha!’ all along

  Where the reedy Lindis floweth,

  Floweth, floweth;

  From the meads where melic groweth

  Faintly came her milking song –

  ‘Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!’ calling, [30]

  ‘For the dews will soon be falling;

  Leave your meadow grasses mellow,

  Mellow, mellow;

  Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

  Come up Whitefoot, come up Lightfoot,

  Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

  Hollow, hollow;

  Come up Jetty, rise and follow,

  From the clovers lift your head;

  Come up Whitefoot, come up Lightfoot, [40]