The Poems of Anne Brontë

Edward Chitham

• Publisher: Edward Everett Root
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781913087562
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

This is the definitive edition of the poems by the leading modern editor. It makes the work fully accessible to all. / This new edition is essential to understanding Anne Brontë's life, her entire literary works, and her relationships with her sisters. / Anne Brontë`s poems have in the past been overshadowed by the marvellous productions of her elder sister Emily, whose leadership she accepted for many years during her youth. In commenting on both the novels and the poetry, however, the increasingly different aims of the two are only just now being clearly recognised.Wuthering HeightsandThe Tenant of Wildfell Hallare not both simply `Gothic novels` and the poetic work of Anne and Emily cannot be subsumed under the heading 'Gondal'./ As this editor shows, we have to grasp how different Anne Brontë`s life experiences were from those of her sisters. Charlotte and Emily shared a bedroom in their childhood (indeed, a bed). They made up their plays which Charlotte called `strange`. Anne slept with her Aunt Elizabeth, a lively, intelligent woman coming from the Wesleyan hotspot of Cornwall.She was steeped in Wesleyan Methodism and had nothing to do with Calvinism. Elizabeth inducted Anne into Evangelical Christianity, a view congenial to Patrick, Anne`s father. Without understanding Anne`s continuous and heartfelt attachment to this mode of thought, feeling and action, we cannot understand her work. As a Methodist, Elizabeth insisted on organised work and behaviour, and as a Wesleyan, on the view that `Jesus died for all`; Anne took on these attitudes. / We have Anne`s retrospective view of her life in poem No.57, which Edward Chitham argues should be studied very closely. It is an intensely honest summary of her life`s experience. Clare Flaherty called this poem a `haunting, elegiac lament over an unfulfilled life`. Here Anne relives her childhood, stressing her own vulnerability, but also her concern for others. She points to the Bible as her exemplar and surprisingly says that her study makes her `wiser than her teachers`, pointing among other things to the scenes inWildfell HallwhereHelen uses theology to struggle with her husband on his deathbed. In lines 178-207 she deals with her relations with Emily. / Edward Chitham, in his new introduction, suggests that nothing could be clearer than her admission that the two drifted away from each other, from childhood to adulthood. InGondal, sometimes Anne supported Emily`s narrative, sometimes wrote on her own account. Though Emily has often appeared the more dominant woman, sometimes – for example, after the initial rejection ofWuthering Heights -Anne firmly but quietly supported her sister.

THE POEMS

1. VERSES BY LADY GERALDA

December 1836

Why, when I hear the stormy breath

Of the wild winter wind

Rushing o’er the mountain heath,

Does sadness fill my mind?

For long ago I loved to lie 5

Upon the pathless moor,

To hear the wild wind rushing by

With never ceasing roar;

Its sound was music then to me;

Its wild and lofty voice 10

Made my heart beat exultingly

And my whole soul rejoice.

But now, how different is the sound?

It takes another tone,

And howls along the barren ground 15

With melancholy moan.

Why does the warm light of the sun

No longer cheer my eyes?

And why is all the beauty gone

From rosy morning skies? 20

Beneath this lone and dreary hill

There is a lovely vale;

The purling of a crystal rill,

The sighing of the gale,

The sweet voice of the singing bird, 25

The wind among the trees,

Are ever in that valley heard;

While every passing breeze

Is loaded with the pleasant scent

Of wild and lovely flowers. 30

To yonder vales I often went

To pass my evening hours.

Last evening when I wandered there

To soothe my weary heart,

Why did the unexpected tear

From my sad eyelid start? 35

Why did the trees, the buds, the stream

Sing forth so joylessly?

And why did all the valley seem

So sadly changed to me? 40

I plucked a primrose young and pale

That grew beneath a tree

And then I hastened from the vale

Silent and thoughtfully.

Soon I was near my lofty home, 45

But when I cast my eye

Upon that flower so fair and lone

Why did I heave a sigh?

I thought of taking it again

To the valley where it grew, 50

But soon I spurned that thought as vain

And weak and childish too.

And then I cast that flower away

To die and wither there;

But when I found it dead today 55

Why did I shed a tear?

O why are things so changed to me?

What gave me joy before

Now fills my heart with misery,

And nature smiles no more. 60

And why are all the beauties gone

From this my native hill?

Alas! my heart is changed alone:

Nature is constant still.

For when the heart is free from care, 65

Whatever meets the eye

Is bright, and every sound we hear

Is full of melody.

The sweetest strain, the wildest wind,

The murmur of a stream, 70

To the sad and weary mind

Like doleful death knells seems

Father! thou hast long been dead,

Mother! thou art gone,

Brother! thou art far away, 75

And I am left alone.

Long before my mother died

I was sad and lone,

And when she departed too

Every joy was ...

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Note on the Layout of the Text
• The Poems
• Appendices
• Also published
• Available now and coming soon