Aye—there it is! it wakes to-night

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Aye—there it is! it wakes to-night
by Emily Brontë
From Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850) and reprinted in The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908).


In these stanzas a louder gale has roused the sleeper on her pillow: the wakened soul struggles to blend with the storm by which it is stayed.

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'Aye—there it is! it wakes to-night
  Deep feelings I thought dead;
Strong in the blast—quick gathering light—
  The heart's flame kindles red.

'Now I can tell by thine altered cheek,
  And by thine eyes' full gaxe,
And by the words thou scarce dost speak,
  How wildly fancy plays.

'Yes—I could swear that glorious wind
  Has swept the world aside,
Has dashed its memory from thy mond
  Like foam-bells from the tide:

'And thou art now a spirit pouring
  Thy presence into all:
The thunder of the tempest's roaring
  The whisper of its fall:

'An universal influence,
  From thine own influence free;
A principle of life—intense—
  Lost to mortality


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'Thus truly, when the breat is cold,
  Thy prisoned soul shall rise;
The dungeon mingle with the mould—
  The captive with the skies
Nature's deep being, thine shall hold,
Her spirit all thy spirit fold,
  Her breath absorb thy sighs.
Mortal! though soon life's tale is told;
  Who once lives, never dies!'