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TO IMAGINATION.

When weary with the long day's care,
⁠And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost and ready to despair,
⁠Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While thou canst speak with such a tone!


So hopeless is the world without;
⁠The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
⁠And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.


What matters it, that, all around,
⁠Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
⁠We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?


Reason, indeed, may oft complain
⁠For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
⁠Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:


But, thou art ever there, to bring
⁠The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
⁠And call a lovelier Life from Death,
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.


I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
⁠Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
⁠I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

Ellis.


Emily Brontë, To Imagination (Ellis Bell was Emily's pen name)

I'm thrilled to see this poem, Manuel! I just discovered it when reading Best Poems of the Brontë Sisters recently. It was a favorite, and I think it would be a wonderful poem to memorize some day. Thanks so much for posting. :-)

That's a very beautiful poem. I had not read it before. I love the contrasts she sets up between the real world and the world of the imagination. Thank you for sharing it, Manuel.

Thank you for posting your choice, Manuel. I enjoyed reading this poem; I had learned that Bronte had done poetry while I was studying Victorian literature but never got around to reading any of it until now.

Lovely poem, Manuel. So heartfelt.

Thank you for sharing. Loved it.

Audio Read by Eve Karpf - a British actress

I especially liked
The world within I doubly prize;
...
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.

I thought the Brontes had miserable childhoods but It seems that is a myth,
....The Poetry Foundation

Although her mother died when Emily was 2, she had a “caring and attentive father�� and a “perfectly normal childhood��.

Geeky question alert!!!

This poem feels traditional/vintage to me.
Do you think that is because I knew the author’s name, or the rhyming style, or the rhythm or something else?