The Bronte Family Volume I Part 9

While Branwell was occupying his leisure as stated in the last chapter, and otherwise employing himself in a desultory way, he pursued the poetic bent of his genius, and sought the improvement of his diction and verse. Among the earliest of his poetical productions, the following are, perhaps, the best. They are distinguished by a similar train of thought and reflection, and by similar sentiments of piety and devotion, as also by the same gloom and sadness of mood, which pervade the poems of his sisters. Indeed, without knowing they were actually Branwell's, we might easily believe them to be from the pen of Charlotte, Emily, or Anne.

The three following poetical essays are on 'Caroline,' under which name Branwell indicates his sister Maria; and, in two of them, he records his reminiscences of her death and funeral obsequies. The first of the three, which he has framed in the sentiments and words of a child, is ent.i.tled:

CAROLINE'S PRAYER,

OR THE CHANGE FROM CHILDHOOD TO WOMANHOOD.

'My Father, and my childhood's guide!

If oft I've wandered far from Thee; E'en though Thine only Son has died To save from death a child like me;

'O! still--to Thee when turns my heart In hours of sadness, frequent now-- Be Thou the G.o.d that once Thou wert, And calm my breast, and clear my brow.

'I'm now no more a little child O'ershadowed by Thy mighty wing; My very dreams seem now more wild Than those my slumbers used to bring.

'I further see--I deeper feel-- With hope more warm, but heart less mild; And former things new shapes reveal, All strangely brightened or despoiled.

'I'm entering on Life's open tide; So--farewell childhood's sh.o.r.es divine!

And, oh, my Father, deign to guide, Through these wide waters, Caroline!'

The second is:

ON CAROLINE.

'The light of thy ancestral hall, Thy Caroline, no longer smiles: She has changed her palace for a pall, Her garden walks for minster aisles: Eternal sleep has stilled her breast Where peace and pleasure made their shrine; Her golden head has sunk to rest-- Oh, would that rest made calmer mine!

'To thee, while watching o'er the bed Where, mute and motionless, she lay, How slow the midnight moments sped!

How void of sunlight woke the day!

Nor ope'd her eyes to morning's beam, Though all around thee woke to her; Nor broke thy raven-pinioned dream Of coffin, shroud, and sepulchre.

'Why beats thy breast when hers is still?

Why linger'st thou when she is gone?

Hop'st thou to light on good or ill?

To find companionship alone?

Perhaps thou think'st the churchyard stone Can hide past smiles and bury sighs: That Memory, with her soul, has flown; That thou canst leave her where she lies.

'No! joy _itself_ is but a shade, So well may its remembrance die; But cares, life's conquerors, never fade, So strong is their reality!

Thou may'st forget the day which gave That child of beauty to thy side, But not the moment when the grave Took back again thy borrowed bride.'

Here Branwell, though he has changed the form of expression and the circ.u.mstance of the loss, is still occupied with the same theme of family bereavement, with which Charlotte herself was so much impressed.

The following was intended as the first canto of a long poem. It also is ent.i.tled, 'Caroline;' and is the soliloquy of one 'Harriet,' who mourns for her sister, the subject of the poem, calling to mind her early recollection of the death and funeral of the departed one. It is extremely probable that Branwell made 'Harriet' a vehicle of expression for Charlotte or Emily, as he had adopted the name of 'Caroline' for Maria.

CAROLINE.

'Calm and clear the day declining, Lends its brightness to the air, With a slanted sunlight shining, Mixed with shadows stretching far: Slow the river pales its glancing, Soft its waters cease their dancing, As the hush of eve advancing Tells our toils that rest is near.

'Why is such a silence given To this summer day's decay?

Does our earth feel aught of Heaven?

Can the voice of Nature pray?

And when daylight's toils are done, Beneath its mighty Maker's throne.

Can it, for noontide sunshine gone, Its debt with smiles repay?

'Quiet airs of sacred gladness Breathing through these woodlands wild, O'er the whirl of mortal madness Spread the slumbers of a child: These surrounding sweeps of trees Swaying to the evening breeze, With a voice like distant seas, Making music mild.

'Woodchurch Hall above them lowering Dark against the pearly sky, With its cl.u.s.tered chimneys towering, Wakes the wind while pa.s.sing by: And in old ancestral glory, Round that scene of ancient story, All its oak-trees, huge and h.o.a.ry, Wave their boughs on high.

''Mid those gables there is one-- The soonest dark when day is gone-- Which, when autumn winds are strongest, Moans the most and echoes longest.

There--with her curls like sunset air, Like it all balmy, bright, and fair-- Sits Harriet, with her cheek reclined On arm as white as mountain snow; While, with a bursting swell, her mind Fills with thoughts of "Long Ago."

'As from yon spire a funeral bell, Wafting through heaven its mourning knell, Warns man that life's uncertain day Like lifeless Nature's must decay; And tells her that the warning deep Speaks where her own forefathers sleep, And where destruction makes a prey Of what was once this world to her, But which--like other G.o.ds of clay-- Has cheated its blind worshipper: With swelling breast and shining eyes That seem to chide the thoughtless skies, She strives in words to find relief For long-pent thoughts of mellowed grief.

'"Time's clouds roll back, and memory's light Bursts suddenly upon my sight; For thoughts, which words could never tell, Find utterance in that funeral bell.

My heart, this eve, seemed full of feeling, Yet nothing clear to me revealing; Sounding in breathings undefined aeolian music to my mind: Then strikes that bell, and all subsides Into a harmony, which glides As sweet and solemn as the dream Of a remembered funeral hymn.

This scene seemed like the magic gla.s.s, Which bore upon its clouded face Strange shadows that deceived the eye With forms defined uncertainly; That Bell is old Agrippa's wand, Which parts the clouds on either hand, And shows the pictured forms of doom Momently brightening through the gloom: Yes--shows a scene of bygone years-- Opens a fount of sealed-up tears-- And wakens memory's pensive thought To visions sleeping--not forgot.

It brings me back a summer's day, Shedding like this its parting ray, With skies as shining and serene, And hills as blue, and groves as green.

'"Ah, well I recollect that hour, When I sat, gazing, just as now, Toward that ivy-mantled tower Among these flowers which wave below!

No--not these flowers--they're long since dead, And flowers have budded, bloomed, and gone, Since those were plucked which gird the head Laid underneath yon churchyard stone!

I stooped to pluck a rose that grew Beside this window, waving then; But back my little hand withdrew, From some reproof of inward pain; For _she who loved it_ was not there To check me with her dove-like eye, And something bid my heart forbear _Her_ favourite rosebud to destroy.

Was it that bell--that funeral bell, Sullenly sounding on the wind?

Was it that melancholy knell Which first to sorrow woke my mind?

I looked upon my mourning dress Till my heart beat with childish fear, And--frightened at my loneliness-- I watched, some well-known sound to hear.

But all without lay silent in The sunny hush of afternoon, And only m.u.f.fled steps within Pa.s.sed slowly and sedately on.

I well can recollect the awe With which I hastened to depart; And, as I ran, the instinctive start With which my mother's form I saw, Arrayed in black, with pallid face, And cheeks and 'kerchief wet with tears, As down she stooped to kiss my face And quiet my uncertain fears.

'"She led me, in her mourning hood, Through voiceless galleries, to a room, 'Neath whose black hangings crowded stood, With downcast eyes and brows of gloom, My known relations; while--with head Declining o'er my sister's bed-- My father's stern eye dropt a tear Upon the coffin resting there.

My mother lifted me to see What might within that coffin be; And, to this moment, I can feel The voiceless gasp--the sickening chill-- With which I hid my whitened face In the dear folds of her embrace; For hardly dared I turn my head Lest its wet eyes should view that bed.

'But, Harriet,' said my mother mild, 'Look at _your_ sister and my child One moment, ere her form be hid For ever 'neath its coffin lid!'

I heard the appeal, and answered too; For down I bent to bid adieu.

But, as I looked, forgot affright In mild and magical delight.

'"There lay she then, as now she lies-- For not a limb has moved since then-- In dreamless slumber closed, those eyes That never more might wake again.

She lay, as I had seen her lie On many a happy night before, When I was humbly kneeling by-- Whom she was teaching to adore: Oh, just as when by her I prayed, And she to heaven sent up my prayer, She lay with flowers about her head-- Though formal grave-clothes hid her hair!

Still did her lips the smile retain Which parted them when hope was high, Still seemed her brow as smoothed from pain As when all thought she could not die.

And, though her bed looked cramped and strange, Her _too_ bright cheek all faded now, My young eyes scarcely saw a change From hours when moonlight paled her brow.

And yet I felt--and scarce could speak-- A chilly face, a faltering breath, When my hand touched the marble cheek Which lay so pa.s.sively beneath.

In fright I gasped, 'Speak, Caroline!'

And bade my sister to arise; But answered not her voice to mine, Nor ope'd her sleeping eyes.

I turned toward my mother then And prayed on her to call; But, though she strove to hide her pain, It forced her tears to fall.

She pressed me to her aching breast As if her heart would break, And bent in silence o'er the rest Of one she could not wake: The rest of one, whose vanished years Her soul had watched in vain; The end of mother's hopes and fears, And happiness and pain.

'"They came--they pressed the coffin lid Above my Caroline, And then, I felt, for ever hid My sister's face from mine!

There was one moment's wildered start-- One pang remembered well-- When first from my unhardened heart The tears of anguish fell: That swell of thought which seemed to fill The bursting heart, the gushing eye, While fades all _present_ good or ill Before the shades of things gone by.

All else seems blank--the mourning march, The proud parade of woe, The pa.s.sage 'neath the churchyard arch, The crowd that met the show.

My place or thoughts amid the train I strive to recollect, in vain-- I could not think or see: I cared not whither I was borne: And only felt that death had torn My Caroline from me.

'"Slowly and sadly, o'er her grave, The organ peals its pa.s.sing stave, And, to its last dark dwelling-place, The corpse attending mourners bear, While, o'er it bending, many a face 'Mongst young companions shows a tear.

I think I glanced toward the crowd That stood in musing silence by, And even now I hear the sound Of some one's voice amongst them cry-- 'I am the Resurrection and the Life-- He who believes in me shall never die!'