The Three Brontes Part 16

Forests of heather, dark and long, Wave their brown branching arms above; And they must soothe thee with their song, And they must shield my child of love.

Wakes up the storm more madly wild, The mountain drifts are tossed on high; Farewell, unblessed, unfriended child, I cannot bear to watch thee die.

In an unmistakable Gondal song Geraldine's lover calls her to the tryst on the moor. In the Gondal poem "Geraldine", she has her child with her in a woodland cavern, and she prays over it wildly:

"Bless it! My Gracious G.o.d!" I cried, "Preserve Thy mortal shrine, For Thine own sake, be Thou its guide, And keep it still divine--

"Say, sin shall never blanch that cheek, Nor suffering change that brow.

Speak, in Thy mercy, Maker, speak, And seal it safe from woe."

The revellers in the city slept, My lady in her woodland bed; I watching o'er her slumber wept, As one who mourns the dead.

Geraldine therefore is the Outcast Mother. In "The Two Children" the doom gathers round the child.

Heavy hangs the raindrop From the burdened spray; Heavy broods the damp mist On uplands far away.

Heavy looms the dull sky, Heavy rolls the sea; And heavy throbs the young heart Beneath that lonely tree.

Never has a blue streak Cleft the clouds since morn Never has his grim fate Smiled since he was born.

Frowning on the infant, Shadowing childhood's joy.

Guardian-angel knows not That melancholy boy.

Blossom--that the west wind Has never wooed to blow, Scentless are thy petals, Thy dew is cold as snow!

Soul--where kindred kindness No early promise woke, Barren is thy beauty, As weed upon a rock.

Wither--soul and blossom!

You both were vainly given: Earth reserves no blessing For the unblest of Heaven.

The doomed child of the outcast mother is the doomed man, and, by the doom, himself an outcast. The other child, the "Child of delight, with sun-bright hair", has vowed herself to be his guardian angel. Their drama is obscure; but you make out that it is the doomed child, and not Branwell Bronte, who is "The Wanderer from the Fold".

How few, of all the hearts that loved, Are grieving for thee now; And why should mine to-night be moved With such a sense of woe?

Too often thus, when left alone, Where none my thoughts can see, Comes back a word, a pa.s.sing tone From thy strange history.

An anxious gazer from the sh.o.r.e-- I marked the whitening wave, And wept above thy fate the more Because--I could not save.

It recks not now, when all is over; But yet my heart will be A mourner still, though friend and lover Have both forgotten thee.

Compare with this that stern elegy in Mr. Shorter's collection, "Shed no tears o'er that tomb." A recent critic has referred this poem of reprobation also to Branwell Bronte--as if Emily could possibly have written like this of Branwell:

Shed no tears o'er that tomb, For there are angels weeping; Mourn not him whose doom Heaven itself is mourning.

... he who slumbers there His bark will strive no more Across the waters of despair To reach that glorious sh.o.r.e.

The time of grace is past, And mercy, scorned and tried, Forsakes to utter wrath at last The soul so steeled by pride.

That wrath will never spare, Will never pity know; Will mock its victim's maddened prayer, With triumph in his woe.

Shut from his Maker's smile The accursed man shall be; For mercy reigns a little while, But hate eternally.

This is obviously related to "The Two Children", and that again to "The Wanderer from the Fold". Obviously, too, the woman's lament in "The Wanderer from the Fold" recalls the Gondal woman's lament for her dishonoured lover. For there are two voices that speak and answer each other, the voice of reprobation, and the voice of pa.s.sion and pity. This is the "Gondal Woman's Lament":

Far, far is mirth withdrawn: 'Tis three long hours before the morn, And I watch lonely, drearily; So come, thou shade, commune with me.

Deserted one! thy corpse lies cold, And mingled with a foreign mould.

Year after year the gra.s.s grows green Above the dust where thou hast been.

I will not name thy blighted name, Tarnished by unforgotten shame, Though not because my bosom torn Joins the mad world in all its scorn.

Thy phantom face is dark with woe, Tears have left ghastly traces there, Those ceaseless tears! I wish their flow Could quench thy wild despair.

They deluge my heart like the rain On cursed Zamorna's howling plain.

Yet when I hear thy foes deride, I must cling closely to thy side.

Our mutual foes! They will not rest From trampling on thy buried breast.

Glutting their hatred with the doom They picture thine beyond the tomb.

(Which is what they did in the song of reprobation. But pa.s.sion and pity know better. They know that)

... G.o.d is not like human kind, Man cannot read the Almighty mind; Vengeance will never torture thee, Nor hurt thy soul eternally.

What have I dreamt? He lies asleep, With whom my heart would vainly weep; _He_ rests, and _I_ endure the woe That left his spirit long ago.

This poem is not quoted for its beauty or its technique, but for its important place in the story. You can track the great Gondal hero down by that one fantastic name, "Zamorna". You have thus four poems, obviously related; and a fifth that links them, obviously, with the Gondal legend.

It is difficult to pick out from the confusion of these unsorted fragments all the heroes of Emily Bronte's saga. There is Gleneden, who kills a tyrant and is put in prison for it. There is Julius Angora, who "lifts his impious eye" in the cathedral where the monarchs of Gondal are gathered; who leads the patriots of Gondal to the battle of Almedore, and was defeated there, and fell with his mortal enemy. He is beloved of Rosina, a crude prototype of Catherine Earnshaw. "King Julius left the south country" and remained in danger in the northern land because a pa.s.sion for Rosina kept him there. There is also Douglas of the "Ride". He appears again in the saga of the Queen Augusta, the woman of the "brown mountain side". But who he was, and what he was doing, and whether he killed Augusta or somebody else killed her, I cannot for the life of me make out. Queen Augusta, like Catherine Earnshaw, is a creature of pa.s.sion and jealousy, and her lover had been faithless. She sings that savage song of defiance and hatred and lamentation: "Light up thy halls!"

Oh! could I see thy lids weighed down in cheerless woe; Too full to hide their tears, too stern to overflow; Oh! could I know thy soul with equal grief was torn, This fate might be endured--this anguish might be borne.

How gloomy grows the night! 'Tis Gondal's wind that blows; I shall not tread again the deep glens where it rose, I feel it on my face----Where, wild blast! dost thou roam?

What do we, wanderer! here, so far away from home?

I do not need thy breath to cool my death-cold brow; But go to that far land where she is shining now; Tell her my latest wish, tell her my dreary doom; Say that my pangs are past, but _hers_ are yet to come.