Hope (Brontë)

For works with similar titles, see Hope.

Hope by Emily Brontë

From Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846) and reprinted in The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908).

Hope Was but a timid friend;   She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend,   Even as selfish-hearted men. She was cruel in her fear;   Through the bars one dreary day, I looked out to see her there,   And she turned her face away! Like a false guard, false watch keeping,   Still, in strife, she whispered peace; She would sing while I was weeping;   If I listened, she would cease. False she was, and unrelenting;   When my last joys strewed the ground, Even Sorrow saw, repenting,   Those sad relics scattered round; Hope, whose whisper would have given   Balm to all my frenzied pain, Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,   Went, and ne'er returned again!