'But he is gone! and, oh, behold, Shown in his death, God's latest sign! Than which more plainly never told An Angel's presence His design. 'By it, the evening beams withdrawn Before a starless night descend; By it, the last blest spirit born From this beginning of an end; 'By all the strife of civil war That beams within yon fated town; By all the heart's worst passions there, That call so loud for vengeance down; 'By that vast wall of cloudy gloom, Piled boding round the firmament; By all its presages of doom, Children of men--Repent! Repent!' This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of Branwell's mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of his sisters, may be noticed in it. In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell's health became a cause of anxiety to the Brontë family. Acquainted as they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend--Mr. Grundy--referring to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy, of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to her death: 'I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure; and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in India or ----, since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most effectual cure. But you don't like croaking, I know well, only I request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten _you_, but _myself_.'[1] [1] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 83. Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred. Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the following version of that lady's will. She says: 'The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces. Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted in her will.'[2] [2] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xi. Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this author, says: