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 mad 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 dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels: Its wings are almost free--its home, its harbour found, Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound. O, 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 racks, 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. _Emily Brontë_ LAST LINES 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 has 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 to Thine 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 man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou were left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee. There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou--Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed. _Emily Brontë_ THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD Who fears to speak of Ninety-eight? Who blushes at the name? When cowards mock the patriot's fate, Who hangs his head for shame? He's all a knave or half a slave Who slights his country thus; But a true man, like you, man, Will fill your glass with us.