Volume Ii Part 15 (2/2)

'Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad, Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw; Sending sad shadows after things not sad, Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe: Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry Becomes an echo of man's misery.'

And thus we see, in Branwell's 'Caroline,' how, even in its calmness, the beautifully suggested picture of eve--when the sunlight slants, and the waters cease their motion, and the calm and hush tell of rest from labour--is made to harmonize with the plaintive thoughts of Harriet.

But then comes the more significant question:

'Why is such a silence given To this summer day's decay, Does our earth feel aught of Heaven, Can the voice of Nature pray?'

What, in short, is the harmonious and sympathetic spell that breathes through Nature?

The wild places of the earth, mountains and moorlands, where the storms raged, and the great winds blew, were nearest akin to the t.i.tanic genius of Branwell and Emily. Thus, in the sonnet, the everlasting majesty of Black Comb was held up by Branwell as an example to man, and as a contrast to human feebleness; and later, when his woe was most acute, he was drawn into a 'communion of vague unity' with Penmaenmawr, comparing the living, beating heart of man with the stony hill, and begging,

'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care, All woes sustain, yet never know despair, Unshrinking face the griefs I now deplore, And stand through storm and s.h.i.+ne like moveless Penmaenmawr.'

And, lastly, in the 'Epistle from a Father to a Child in her Grave,' we find him comparing himself with one in the midst of wild mountains:

'I, thy life's source, was like a wanderer breasting Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting, Whose rough rocks rise above the gra.s.sy mead, With sleet and north winds howling overhead.'

It will be seen from this short inquiry that the poetry of Branwell Bronte was entirely introspective, having, almost to the last line, some direct reference to his own thoughts or feelings; and that it may thus be read as an actual part of the story of his life. The disposition it reveals, though often hidden, as the readers of this book know, through the effects of folly and indulgence, was one of a singularly gentle, affectionate, and sympathetic character; pa.s.sionate and unstable, it is true, but a disposition, nevertheless, that has been frequently misunderstood, and not seldom wronged. One of the aims of this book has been to set Patrick Branwell Bronte right with the public; an attempt, not to clear him from follies and weaknesses that really were his--which the public, but for the mistakes of biographers, would never have known--but to show that, at any rate, his nature was one rather to be admired than condemned. It has aimed also, by the publication of his poetical writings, to demonstrate that his genius is not unworthy to be ranked with that which made his sisters famous. Yet it may, perhaps, be held that the poems here published contain more of rich promise than of real fulfilment, rather the earnest of literary success than the actual accomplishment of it. But, in reading the poetry of Branwell Bronte, which is so uniformly sad, it may be well to remember what Mr. Swinburne has said, in speaking of Mr. Browning, that 'to do justice to any book which deserves any other sort of justice than that of the fire or waste-paper basket, it is necessary to read it in a fit frame of mind.'

THE END.

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