Anne Brontë: Verses about Freedom

That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language; thus is speaks to me --
'I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains -- and they still are free,
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak and drear,
And stern and lovely, as they used to be
When thou, a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O'er rocks and glens and snowy heights
Didst often love to stray.

I've blown the wild untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows,
And I have howled in caverns wild
Where thou, a joyous mountain child,
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed, but thou
Art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be;
No voice but mine can reach thine ear,
And Heaven has kindly sent me here,
To mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell thee of the cherished land
Of thy nativity.'

Blow on, wild wind, thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.

Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far
Than that dull gnawing tearless [time]
The stupor of despair.

Confined and hopeless as I am,
O speak of liberty,
O tell me of my mountain home,
And I will welcome thee.

Alexandrina Zenobia

Come to the banquet -- triumph in your songs!
Strike up the chords -- and sing of Victory!
The oppressed have risen to redress their wrongs;
The Tyrants are o'erthrown; the Land is free!
The Land is free! Aye, shout it forth once more;
Is she not red with her oppressors' gore?
We are her champions -- shall we not rejoice?
Are not the tyrants' broad domains our own?
Then wherefore triumph with a faltering voice;
And talk of freedom in a doubtful tone?
Have we not longed through life the reign to see
Of Justice, linked with Glorious Liberty?

Shout you that will, and you that can rejoice
To revel in the riches of your foes.
In praise of deadly vengeance lift you voice,
Gloat o'er your tyrants' blood, you victims' woes.
I'd rather listen to the skylarks' songs,
And think on Gondal's, and my Father's wrongs.

It may be pleasant, to recall the death
Of those beneath whose sheltering roof you lie;
But I would rather press the mountain heath,
With naught to shield me from the starry sky,
And dream of yet untasted victory --
A distant hope -- and feel that I am free!

O happy life! To range the mountains wild,
The waving woods -- or Ocean's heaving breast,
With limbs unfettered, conscience undefiled,
And choosing where to wander, where to rest!
Hunted, oppressed, but ever strong to cope --
With toils, and perils -- ever full of hope!

'Our flower is budding' -- When that word was heard
On desert shore, or breezy mountain's brow,
Wherever said -- what glorious thoughts it stirred!
'Twas budding then -- Say has it blossomed now?
Is this the end we struggled to obtain?
O for the wandering Outlaw's life again!

I'm buried now; I've done with life;
I've done with hate, revenge and strife;
I've done with joy, and hope and love
And all the bustling world above.
Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb.

No hope, no pleasure can I find:
I am grown weary of my mind;
Often in balmy sleep I try
To gain a rest from misery,

And in one hour of calm repose
To find a respite from my woes,
But dreamless sleep is not for me
And I am still in misery.

I dream of liberty, 'tis true,
But then I dream of sorrow too,
Of blood and guilt and horrid woes,
Of tortured friends and happy foes;

I dream about the world, but then
I dream of fiends instead of men;
Each smiling hope so quickly fades
And such a lurid gloom pervades

That world -- that when I wake and see
Those dreary phantoms fade and flee,
Even in my dungeon I can smile,
And taste of joy a little while.

And yet it is not always so;
I dreamt a little while ago
That all was as it used to be:
A fresh free wind passed over me;

It was a pleasant summer's day,
The sun shone forth with cheering ray,
Methought a little lovely child
Looked up into my face and smiled.

My heart was full, I wept for joy,
It was my own, my darling boy;
I clasped him to my breast and he
Kissed me and laughed in childish glee.

Just them I heard in whisper sweet
A well known voice my name repeat.
His father stood before my eyes;
I gazed at him in mute surprise,

I thought he smiled and spoke to me,
But still in silent ecstasy
I gazed at him; I could not speak;
I uttered one long piercing shriek.

Alas! Alas! That cursed scream
Aroused me from my heavenly dream;
I looked around in wild despair,
I called them, but they were not there;
The father and the child are gone,
And I must live and die alone.

Marina Sabia

A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee.
Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?

No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.

He pines not for the light of day
Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
To rack his burning brow.

Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
The stupor of despair.

Yet not for ever did that mood
Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
That told another tale.

It did not speak of reason gone,
It was not madness quite;
It was a fitful flickering fire,
A strange uncertain light.

And sooth to say, these latter years
Strange fancies now and then
Had filled his cell with scenes of life
And forms of living men.

A mind that cannot cease to think
Why needs he cherish there?
Torpor may bring relief to pain
And madness to despair.

Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
As feverish dreams display:
What if those fancies still increase
And reason quite decay?

But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
Voices of men they seem;
And two have entered now his cell;
Can this too be a dream?

'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
Revenge and liberty!
Your foes are dead, and we are come
At last to set you free.'

So spoke the elder of the two,
And in the captive's eyes
He looked for gleaming ecstasy
But only found surprise.

'My foes are dead! It must be then
That all mankind are gone.
For they were all my deadly foes
And friends I had not one.'

I dreamt last night; and in that dream
My boyhood's heart was mine again;
These latter years did nothing seem
With all their mingled joy and pain,
Their thousand deeds of good and ill,
Their hopes which time did not fulfil,
Their glorious moments of success,
Their love that closed in bitterness,
Their hate that grew with growing strength,
Their darling projects -- dropped at length,
And higher aims that still prevail, --
For I must perish ere they fail, --
That crowning object of my life,
The end of all my toil and strife,
Source of my virtues and my crimes,
For which I've toiled and striven in vain, --
But, if I fail a thousand times,
Still I will toil and strive again: --
Yet even this was then forgot;
My present heart and soul were not:
All the rough lessons life has taught,
That are become a part of me,
A moment's sleep to nothing brought
And made me what I used to be.
And I was roaming, light and gay,
Upon a breezy, sunny day,
A bold and careless youth;
No guilty stain was on my mind;
And, if not over soft or kind,
My heart was full of truth.
It was a well-known mountain scene; --
Wild steeps, with rugged glens between
I should have thirsted to explore,
Had I not trod them oft before.
A younger boy was with me there.
His hand upon my shoulder leant;
His heart, like mine, was free from care,
His breath, with sportive toil, was spent;
For my rough pastimes he would share,
And equal dangers loved to dare,
(Though seldom I would care to vie
In learning's keen pursuit with him;
I loved free air and open sky
Better than books and tutors grim,)
And we had wandered far that day
O'er that forbidden ground away --
Ground, to our rebel feet how dear;
Danger and freedom both were there! --
Had climbed the steep and coursed the dale
Until his strength began to fail.

He bade me pause and breathe a while,
But spoke it with a happy smile.

His lips were parted to inhale
The breeze that swept the ferny dale,
And chased the clouds across the sky,
And waved his locks in passing by,
And fanned my cheek; (so real did seem
This strange, untrue, but truthlike dream;)
And, as we stood, I laughed to see
His fair young cheek so brightly glow.
He turned his sparkling eyes to me
With looks no painter's art could show,
Nor words portray; -- but earnest mirth,
And truthful love I there descried;
And, while I thought upon his worth,
My bosom glowed with joy and pride.

I could have kissed his forehead fair;
I could nave clasped him to my heart;
But tenderness with me was rare,
And I must take a rougher part:
I seized him in my boisterous mirth;
I bore him struggling to the earth
And grappling, strength for strength we strove --
He half in wrath, -- I all for love;
But I gave o'er the strife at length,
Ashamed of my superior strength, --
The rather that I marked his eye
Kindle as if a change were nigh.

We paused to breathe a little space,
Reclining on the heather brae;
But still I gazed upon his face
To watch the shadow pass away.
I grasped his hand, and it was fled; --
A smile -- a laugh -- and all was well: --
Upon my breast he leant his head,
And into graver talk we fell, --
More serious -- yet so blest did seem
That calm communion then,
That, when I found it but a dream,
I longed to sleep again.

At first, remembrance slowly woke.
Surprise, regret, successive rose,
That love's strong cords should thus be broke
And dearest friends turn deadliest foes.
Then, like a cold, o'erwhelming flood
Upon my soul it burst ------------
This heart had thirsted for his blood;
This hand allayed that thirst!
These eyes had watched, without a tear,
His dying agony;
These ears, unmoved, had heard his prayer;
This tongue had cursed him suffering there,
And mocked him bitterly!

Unwonted weakness o'er me crept;
I sighed -- nay, weaker still -- I wept!
Wept, like a woman o'er the deed
I had been proud to do: --
As I had made his bosom bleed;
My own was bleeding too.

Back foolish tears! -- the man I slew
Was not the boy I cherished so;
And that young arm that clasped the friend
Was not the same that stabbed the foe:
By time and adverse thoughts estranged,
And wrongs and vengeance, both were changed.
Repentance, now, were worse that vain:
Time's current cannot backward run;
And be the action wrong or right,
It is for ever done.
Then reap the fruits -- I've said his death
Should be my country's gain: --
If not -- then I have spent my breath,
And spilt his blood in vain:
And I have laboured hard and long,
But little good obtained;
My foes are many, yet, and strong,
Not half the battle's gained;
For, still, the greater deeds I've done,
The more I have to do.
The faster I can journey on,
The farther I must go.
If Fortune favoured for a while,
I could not rest beneath her smile,
Nor triumph in success:
When I have gained one river's shore
A wilder torrent, stretched before,
Defies me with its deafening roar;
And onward I must press.
And, much I doubt, this work of strife,
In blood and death begun,
Will call for many a victim more
Before the cause is won. --
Well! my own life, I'd freely give
Ere I would fail in my design; --
The cause must prosper if I live,
And I will die if it decline:
Advanced this far, I'll not recede; --
Whether to vanquish or to bleed,
Onward, unchecked, I must proceed.
Be Death, or Victory mine!

EZ--