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,
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
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
"Still, let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year and year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers, for short life, eternal liberty.
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 that kill me with desire-
"Desire for nothing known in my maturer years
When joy grew made with awe at counting future tears;
When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunderstorm;
"But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends;
Mute music soothes my breast- unuttered harmony
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me.
"Then dawms the Invisible, the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is fone, my inward essence feels-
Its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf it stoops and dares the final bound!
"Oh 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 rack 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."
She ceased to speak, and we, unanswering turned to go-
We had no further power to work the captive woe;
Her cheek, her gleaming eye, declared that man had given
A sentence unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.
Emily Bronte
It says in the notes at the bottom of the page as a footnote to the title, "According to Charlotte Bronte, these are the last lines written by her sister".
I am overcome by this piece of art.
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,
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
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
"Still, let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year and year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers, for short life, eternal liberty.
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 that kill me with desire-
"Desire for nothing known in my maturer years
When joy grew made with awe at counting future tears;
When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunderstorm;
"But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends;
Mute music soothes my breast- unuttered harmony
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me.
"Then dawms the Invisible, the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is fone, my inward essence feels-
Its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf it stoops and dares the final bound!
"Oh 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 rack 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."
She ceased to speak, and we, unanswering turned to go-
We had no further power to work the captive woe;
Her cheek, her gleaming eye, declared that man had given
A sentence unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.
Emily Bronte
It says in the notes at the bottom of the page as a footnote to the title, "According to Charlotte Bronte, these are the last lines written by her sister".
I am overcome by this piece of art.
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