The Three Brontës · Chapter 13The Philosopher
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Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity. And never care how rain may steep, Or snow may cover me! No promised heaven, these wild desires Could all, or half fulfil; No threatened hell, with quenchless fires, Subdue this restless will.
So said I, and still say the same; Still, to my death, will say— Three gods, within this little frame, Are warring night and day; Heaven could not hold them all, and yet They all are held in me; And must be mine till I forget My present entity! Oh, for the time, when in my breast Their struggles will be o'er! Oh, for the day, when I shall rest, And never suffer more!
I saw a spirit, standing, man, Where thou dost stand—an hour ago, And round his feet three rivers ran, Of equal depth, and equal flow— A golden stream—and one like blood, And one like sapphire seemed to be; But where they joined their triple flood It tumbled in an inky sea. The spirit sent his dazzling gaze Down through that ocean's gloomy night; Then, kindling all, with sudden blaze,— The glad deep sparkled wide and bright— White as the sun, far, far more fair Than its divided sources were!
And even for that spirit, seer, I've watched and sought my lifetime long; Sought him in heaven, hell, earth and air, An endless search and always wrong. Had I but seen his glorious eye Once light the clouds that 'wilder me, I ne'er had raised this coward cry To cease to think, and cease to be; I ne'er had called oblivion blest, Nor, stretching eager hands to death, Implored to change for senseless rest This sentient soul, this living breath— Oh, let me die—that power and will Their cruel strife may close, And conquered good and conquering ill Be lost in one repose!
That vision of the transcendent spirit, with the mingled triple flood of life about his feet, is one that Blake might have seen and sung and painted.
The fourth poem, "The Prisoner", is a fragment, and an obscure fragment, which may belong to a very different cycle. But whatever its place, it has the same visionary quality. The vision is of the woman captive, "confined in triple walls", the "guest darkly lodged", the "chainless soul", that defies its conqueror, its gaoler, and the spectator of its agony. It has, this prisoner, its own unspeakable consolation, the "Messenger":
He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars. Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire, And visions rise and change that kill me with desire.
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But, first, a hush of peace—a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends; Mute music soothes my breast—unuttered harmony, That I could never dream, till earth was lost to me.
Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels: Its wings are almost free—its home, its harbour found, Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound.
That is the language of a mystic, of a mystic who has passed beyond contemplation; who has known or imagined ecstasy. The joy is unmistakable; unmistakable, too, is the horror of the return:
Oh! dreadful is the check—intense the agony— When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
There is no doubt about those three verses; that they are the expression of the rarest and the most tremendous experience that is given to humanity to know.
If "The Visionary" does not touch that supernal place, it belongs indubitably to the borderland:
Silent is the house; all are laid asleep: One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep, Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the wildering drift and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor; Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door; The little lamp burns straight, the rays shoot strong and far I trim it well to be the wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame! Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame; But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air, Safe in secret power from lurking human snare; What loves me no word of mine shall e'er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.
Burn then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear— Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air; He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me: Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
Those who can see nothing in this poem but the idealization of an earthly passion must be strangely and perversely mistaken in their Emily Brontë. I confess I can never read it without thinking of one of the most marvellous of all poems of Divine Love: "En una Noche Escura".