Charlotte Brontë*

Charlotte Brontë (1816—1855) is a Victorian poet, who — although the third of six children — is remembered as the eldest of the three Brontë sisters. Along with Emily and Anne, she released a collection of poetry in 1846. Charlotte’s poems in this collection are primarily narrative.

After the success of her novel Jane Eyre (1847), she shifted her full attention to writing fiction. Most writers will focus their efforts where they are finding success; Charlotte’s shift toward fiction also parallels the changing interests of the reading public during the 1830s and ‘40s.

Although Jane Eyre was criticized by the religious in Victorian England, Brontë responded in the preface to the second edition: “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”

Literary scholar Karen Swallow Prior says, “As she strives to create a sense of self within a set of conditions in which almost nothing is a given, Jane does so as a committed Christian… Even the heavy Romantic influences are transformed by Brontë’s Christian faith.”

Charlotte Brontë’s other novels are Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853). Her posthumously published fiction includes the earlier novel The Professor, and her story Emma, (not to be confused with the Jane Austen novel) which Charlotte had barely started, yet has been completed at various times by other writers.

Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;—
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back—a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress—
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Charlotte Brontë: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Emily Brontë*

Emily Brontë (1818—1848) is one of the famous sisters ― Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Their mother died when Emily was just three, and their two eldest sisters died less than four years later. Such great loss is dealt with in the poem below.

Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights (1847) has become an important focus to the Yorkshire tourism that has sprung up around the popularity of the writing of the Brontë sisters. The Parsonage where they grew up is now a museum to their honour, and St. Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth, Yorkshire, is visited both as where their father served as Curate, and where Charlotte and Emily are buried in the family vault.

Like so many other female writers, they wrote their poetry and novels using male pseudonyms. The following poem is from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. (1846, Aylott and Jones).

Encouragement

I do not weep; I would not weep;
Our mother needs no tears:
Dry thine eyes, too; ’tis vain to keep
This causeless grief for years.

What though her brow be changed and cold,
Her sweet eyes closed for ever?
What though the stone—the darksome mould
Our mortal bodies sever?

What though her hand smooth ne’er again
Those silken locks of thine?
Nor, through long hours of future pain,
Her kind face o’er thee shine?

Remember still, she is not dead;
She sees us, sister, now;
Laid, where her angel spirit fled,
’Mid heath and frozen snow.

And from that world of heavenly light
Will she not always bend
To guide us in our lifetime’s night,
And guard us to the end?

Thou knowest she will; and thou mayst mourn
That WE are left below:
But not that she can ne’er return
To share our earthly woe.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Emily Brontë: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Anne Brontë*

Anne Brontë (1820―1849) is one of the famous Brontë sisters who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire as the daughters of a country parson. Little is known about Anne’s life ― as distinct from that of her older sisters Charlotte and Emily. While quite young Emily and Anne created a fictitious island called Gondal, which they wrote stories and poems about.

From 1839 to 1845, Anne served as a governess, which provided much insight for her into the lives of a wider range of people ― giving her the perspective from which to write her first novel, Agnes Grey (1847). Her poetry and fiction was at first overshadowed by that of her sisters.

An examination of her output, however, shows Anne to be a subtle and sophisticated writer. She is concerned with character, morality, and faith, and yet does not resort to easy answers to difficult issues. Since the publication of W. T. Hale's study, Anne Brontë: Her Life and Writings (1929), Anne has been increasingly seen as a significant 19th century novelist.

Music on Christmas Morning

Music I love—but ne’er a strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine;
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel’s voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice.

To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The powers of darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from death and hell.

While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.

With them, I celebrate His birth;
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good will to men, and peace on Earth,
To us a Saviour King is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan’s power is overthrown!

A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell must renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed,
And Satan’s self must now confess,
That Christ has earned a right to bless.

Now holy peace may smile from Heaven,
And heavenly truth from earth shall spring:
The captive’s galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our King;
And He that gave His blood for men
Will lead us home to God again.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Anne Brontë: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock.

Anne Brontë

Anne Brontë (1820―1849) is the youngest of the Brontë sisters. Their father was an evangelical Anglican priest who was appointed Rector of Haworth in Yorkshire shortly after Anne’s birth. Her mother died when Anne was barely a year old.

She wrote under the pseudonym of Acton Bell ― contributing 21 poems to a book of verse published in 1846 by the three sisters, which went unnoticed. She went on to publish two novels ― Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Anne’s novels sold well, perhaps due to the association in the minds of the public with her sisters’ successful novels ― Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre (both published in 1847). She fell ill with tuberculosis late in 1848, and died by the following May.

The Penitent

I mourn with thee and yet rejoice
That thou shouldst sorrow so;
With Angel choirs I join my voice
To bless the sinner's woe.
Though friends and kindred turn away
And laugh thy grief to scorn,
I hear the great Redeemer say
'Blessed are ye that mourn'.

Hold on thy course nor deem it strange
That earthly cords are riven.
Man may lament the wondrous change
But 'There is joy in Heaven'!

The post this past week at Poems For Ephesians is also about Anne Brontë.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Anne Brontë: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë (1816—1855) is the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters. She had had two older sisters who both died in childhood. Her mother also died when Charlotte was 5-years-old. Her father was an evangelical Anglican priest who was appointed Rector of Haworth in Yorkshire in 1820.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne, became their own literary community — assisting each other with their poetry and fiction. Charlotte is best remembered as the author of the novel Jane Eyre (1847). She received two offers of marriage in 1839, another in 1851, and finally in 1854 she married Arthur Bell Nicholls — her father's Curate.

Her remaining siblings all died prematurely: her brother Branwell and sister Emily in 1848, and lastly Anne in 1849. Charlotte, herself died in 1855 due to overwhelming sickness during her pregnancy.

On The Death Of Anne Brontë

There's little joy in life for me,
And little terror in the grave;
I 've lived the parting hour to see
Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,
Wishing each sigh might be the last;
Longing to see the shade of death
O'er those belovèd features cast.

The cloud, the stillness that must part
The darling of my life from me;
And then to thank God from my heart,
To thank Him well and fervently;

Although I knew that we had lost
The hope and glory of our life;
And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,
Must bear alone the weary strife.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Charlotte Brontë: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë (1818—1848) is known for her poetry and for her one novel Wuthering Heights (1847). She is part of the famous trio of sisters, along with Anne and Charlotte. Her mother died of cancer when she was just three years old. Her father was an evangelical ordained minister in the Church of England. In 1846 the three sisters published a book of poems under their pseudonyms; it was called Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Twenty one of the poems were Emily's. The book, unfortunately, only sold two copies.

According to Charlotte, the following poem contains, "...the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote." The poem was one of Emily Dickinson's favourites, and was chosen by her to be read at her funeral.

No Coward Soul is Mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.

0 God within my breast,
Almighty ever-present Deity!
Life—that in me hast rest,
As I—Undying Life—have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though Earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And thou wert left alone,
Every Existence would exist in thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou—Thou art Being and Breath,
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Emily Brontë: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.