Although Brontë had, as we have seen, abandoned the hope of a high artistic career, he still clung to the practice of portrait-painting, and this gave him leisure to court the muse. The following are the earliest of his poems, of which the MSS. are in my possession; and these are fragments only. The first is a verse of eleven lines, dated January 23rd, 1838, which originally concluded a poem of sixty;-- 'There's many a grief to shade the scene, And hide the starry skies; But all such clouds that intervene From mortal life arise. And--may I smile--O God! to see Their storms of sorrow beat on me, When I so surely know That Thou, the while, art shining on; That I, at last, when they are gone, Shall see the glories of Thy throne, So far more bright than now.' This fragment, written by Branwell at the age of twenty-one, is characteristic of the early tone of his mind. His naturally amiable and susceptible disposition had soon become imbued with the spirit of Christian piety which surrounded his life. He was, too, at the time, full of noble impulses and high aspirations; but the shade of melancholy implanted in his constitution had begun to influence his writings. The following, which is the beginning of another poem, must have been written in some such thoughtful mood, though the title is not borne out in the portion I am able to give. DEATH TRIUMPHANT. MAY, 1838. 'Oh! on this first bright Mayday morn, That seems to change our earth to Heaven, May my own bitter thoughts be borne, With the wild winter it has driven! Like this earth, may my mind be made To feel the freshness round me spreading, No other aid to rouse it needing Than thy glad light, so long delayed. Sweet woodland sunshine!--none but thee Can wake the joys of memory, Which seemed decaying, as all decayed. 'O! may they bud, as thou dost now, With promise of a summer near! Nay--let me feel my weary brow-- Where are the ringlets wreathing there? Why does the hand that shades it tremble? Why do these limbs, so languid, shun Their walk beneath the morning sun? Ah, mortal Self! couldst thou dissemble Like Sister-Soul! But forms refuse The real and unreal to confuse. But, with caprice of fancy, She Joins things long past with things to be, Till even I doubt if I have told My tale of woes and wonders o'er, Or think Her magic can unfold A phantom path of joys before-- Or, laid beneath this Mayday blaze-- Ask, "Live I o'er departed days?" Am I the child by Gambia's side, Beneath its woodlands waving wide? Have I the footsteps bounding free, The happy laugh of infancy?'