Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/368

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312
POEMS OF EMILY BRONTË

And yet there is—or seems at least to be—
A general scheme of thought that colours all;
So though each one be different, all agree
In the same melancholy shade-like pall;
Even as the shadows look the same to me,
Though cast, I know, from many a varying wall
In this vast city—hut and temple sharing
In the same light, and the same darkness wearing.


Not that I deem all life a course of shade,
Nor all the world a waste of streets like these:
From youth to age a mighty change is made
As from this city to the southern seas.
For years through youthful hope our course is laid,
For years in sloth a sea without a breeze,
For years within some silent, shapeless cave,
Changing, and still the same, yet swiftly passing.


'Tis here 'tis there, 'tis nowhere—oh! my soul,
Is there no rest from such a fruitless chasing
Of the wild dreams that ever round me roll?
Each as it comes the parting thought defacing,
Yet all still hurrying to the self-same goal.
Gone! Can I catch them? — but their path alone
Stretching afar toward one for ever gone!
What have I now? The star that brightly shone