I see around me piteous tombstones grey Stretching their shadows far away. Beneath the turf my footsteps tread Lie low and lone the silent dead; Beneath the turf, beneath the mould, For ever dark, for ever cold. And my eyes cannot hold the tears That memory hoards from vanished years. For Time and Death and mortal pain Give wounds that will not heal again. Let me remember half the woe I've seen and heard and felt below, And heaven itself, so pure and blest, Could never give my spirit rest. Sweet land of light! Thy children fair Know nought akin to our despair; Nor have they felt, nor can they tell What tenants haunt each mortal cell, What gloomy guests we hold within, Torments and madness, fear and sin! Well, may they live in ecstasy Their long eternity of joy; At least we would not bring them down With us to weep, with us to groan. No, Earth would wish no other sphere To taste her cup of suffering drear; She turns from heaven a tearless eye And only mourns that _we_ must die! Ah mother! what shall comfort thee In all this boundless misery? To cheer our eager eyes awhile, We see thee smile, how fondly smile! But who reads not through the tender glow Thy deep, unutterable woe? Indeed no darling hand above Can cheat thee of thy children's love. We all, in life's departing shine, Our last dear longings blend with thine, And struggle still, and strive to trace With clouded gaze thy darling face. We would not leave our nature home For _any_ world beyond the tomb. No, mother, on thy kindly breast Let us be laid in lasting rest, Or waken but to share with thee A mutual immortality. There is the whole spirit of _Wuthering Heights_; the spirit of Catherine Earnshaw's dream; the spirit that in the last page broods over the moorland graveyard. It is instinct with a more than pagan adoration of the tragic earth, adored because of her tragedy.