My Love For Emily Brontë Poetry

 Hi Everyone, 

This is a bit of a different post as I wanted to talk to you all about my love for Emily Brontë. Her poetry is my favourite so today I wanted to talk to you all about her and why I love her.

I first discovered Emily Brontë poetry in a collection of poetry I love and highly recommend by Chris Riddell called Poems to Fall In Love With, where I read Love and Friendship which is now my favourite poem ever. It is so true and was and still is very meaningful to me. I then discovered Lucy Powrie's YouTube channel (I know I talk about her way too much!) and found out she had an edition of Emily Brontë poetry from Penguin Classics (black spine) and when I was next in Waterstones I was browsing the poetry and came across it! I had to buy it and I have read it a lot since then. 

Her poems are such a comfort and are about nature, inspired by the Yorkshire moors and lots are set in Gondall, the fantasy world Emily and her sister Anne created. My favourites are the ones about death which Emily experienced a lot of, as lots of Victorian women would have. Two of her older sisters died at boarding school where they fell ill of tuberculosis most likely from bad living conditions. Her mother also died when she was young and her views of death are very religious but so beautifully touching. The language she uses is beyond anything I've ever read and just everything about her poems I love.

I am also fascinated by the Brontë's life (as you can tell by the fact I couldn't go two paragraphs in a post about Emily Brontë without stating facts about her and her family!). They have a really interesting life story, even if to modern standards, their life was very short. 

I haven't read Wuthering Heights but I do have it so I will probably read it before the end of the year. I am hoping to love it as it is Emily's only novel. 

I haven't read or don't have any Brontë non-fiction but hope to read some soon. I know there is a biography of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell so I think that could be a good one even if I know it isn't the most historically accurate!

The perfect way to close out this post is with Emily Brontë poetry. I just have to share Love and Friendship with you!

Love is like the wild rose-briar,

Friendship like the holly-tree—

The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms

But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,

Its summer blossoms scent the air;

Yet wait till winter comes again

And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now

And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,

That when December blights thy brow

He still may leave thy garland green.

I love it so  much and now I am going to share a few others- I can't help it!

There should be no despair for you

While nightly stars are burning;

While evening pours its silent dew,

And sunshine gilds the morning.

There should be no despair—though tears

May flow down like a river:

Are not the best beloved of years

Around your heart for ever?

They weep, you weep, it must be so;

Winds sigh as you are sighing,

And winter sheds its grief in snow

Where Autumn’s leaves are lying:

Yet, these revive, and from their fate

Your fate cannot be parted:

Then, journey on, if not elate,

Still, NEVER broken-hearted!

I could go on sharing poem after poem but just one more...

No coward soul is mine

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

I see Heaven's glories shine

And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hast rest,

As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity,

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And Thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being and Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Her poetry is just beautiful and I hope I have inspired you to pick up a copy of it! Happy reading!