Compare with this that stern elegy in Mr. Shorter's collection, "Shed no tears o'er that tomb." A recent critic has referred this poem of reprobation also to Branwell Brontë--as if Emily could possibly have written like this of Branwell: Shed no tears o'er that tomb, For there are angels weeping; Mourn not him whose doom Heaven itself is mourning. * * * * * ... he who slumbers there His bark will strive no more Across the waters of despair To reach that glorious shore. The time of grace is past, And mercy, scorned and tried, Forsakes to utter wrath at last The soul so steeled by pride. That wrath will never spare, Will never pity know; Will mock its victim's maddened prayer, With triumph in his woe. Shut from his Maker's smile The accursed man shall be; For mercy reigns a little while, But hate eternally. This is obviously related to "The Two Children", and that again to "The Wanderer from the Fold". Obviously, too, the woman's lament in "The Wanderer from the Fold" recalls the Gondal woman's lament for her dishonoured lover. For there are two voices that speak and answer each other, the voice of reprobation, and the voice of passion and pity. This is the "Gondal Woman's Lament": Far, far is mirth withdrawn: 'Tis three long hours before the morn, And I watch lonely, drearily; So come, thou shade, commune with me. Deserted one! thy corpse lies cold, And mingled with a foreign mould. Year after year the grass grows green Above the dust where thou hast been. I will not name thy blighted name, Tarnished by unforgotten shame, Though not because my bosom torn Joins the mad world in all its scorn. Thy phantom face is dark with woe, Tears have left ghastly traces there, Those ceaseless tears! I wish their flow Could quench thy wild despair. They deluge my heart like the rain On cursed Zamorna's howling plain. Yet when I hear thy foes deride, I must cling closely to thy side. Our mutual foes! They will not rest From trampling on thy buried breast. Glutting their hatred with the doom They picture thine beyond the tomb. (Which is what they did in the song of reprobation. But passion and pity know better. They know that) ... God is not like human kind, Man cannot read the Almighty mind; Vengeance will never torture thee, Nor hurt thy soul eternally. * * * * * What have I dreamt? He lies asleep, With whom my heart would vainly weep; _He_ rests, and _I_ endure the woe That left his spirit long ago. This poem is not quoted for its beauty or its technique, but for its important place in the story. You can track the great Gondal hero down by that one fantastic name, "Zamorna". You have thus four poems, obviously related; and a fifth that links them, obviously, with the Gondal legend.