Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (533 page)

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 muffled steps within

Passed 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 passively 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 passage ‘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 passing 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!’

‘“Long years have never worn away

The unnatural strangeness of that day,

When I beheld — upon the plate

Of grim death’s mockery of state —

That well-known word, that long-loved name,

Now but remembered like the dream

Of half-forgotten hymns divine,

My sister’s name — my Caroline!

Down, down, they lowered her, sad and slow,

Into her narrow house below:

And deep, indeed, appeared to be

That one glimpse of eternity,

Where, cut from life, corruption lay,

Where beauty soon should turn to clay!

Though scarcely conscious, hotly fell

The drops that spoke my last farewell;

And wild my sob, when hollow rung

The first cold clod above her flung,

When glitter was to turn to rust,

‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!’

‘“How bitter seemed that moment when,

Earth’s ceremonies o’er,

We from the filled grave turned again

To leave her evermore;

And, when emerging from the cold

Of damp, sepulchral air,

As I turned, listless to behold

The evening fresh and fair,

How sadly seemed to smile the face

Of the descending sun!

How seemed as if his latest race

Were with that evening run!

There sank his orb behind the grove

Of my ancestral home,

With heaven’s unbounded vault above

To canopy his tomb.

Yet lingering sadly and serene,

As for his last farewell,

To shine upon those wild woods green

O’er which he’d loved to dwell.

‘“I lost him, and the silent room,

Where soon at rest I lay,

Began to darken, ‘neath the gloom

Of twilight’s dull decay;

So, sobbing as my heart would break,

And blind with gushing eyes,

Hours seemed whole nights to me awake,

And day as ‘twould not rise.

I almost prayed that I might die —

But then the thought would come

That, if I did, my corpse must lie