OTHER POEMS.
Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness--'The Epicurean's
Song'--'Song'--Northangerland--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
Grave'--Letter to Mr. Grundy--Miss Branwell's Death--Her Will--Her
Nephew Remembered--Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
Biographers of his Sisters.
During the absence of his sisters Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, and
while Anne was away as a governess, Branwell no doubt felt lonely at
the parsonage at Haworth; but he appears to have sought consolation
from his troubles in the soothing influences of music and poetry. He
knew that these employments softened many of the difficulties that
beset the road of human life, and that they introduced men into a
purer and nobler sphere than that which is called reality. He felt
that they led 'the spirit on, in an ecstasy of admiration, of sweet
sorrow, or of unearthly joy, to the music of harmonious, and not
wholly intelligible words, raising in the mind beauteous and
transcendent images.' Whatever may have been said as to Branwell's
proneness to self-indulgence, and his enjoyment of society, even that
of 'The Bull,' and of the corrupt of Haworth, none of his alleged
depravity and coarseness of disposition disfigured his verses, however
deficient his early effusions may have been in the higher excellencies
of the Muse. From the general tenor of his writings, which is
religious and sometimes philosophical, he seems, under his
misfortunes, which were ever with him in one shape or another, to have
sought consolation in the shadowed paths of poetry and reflection.
Some lights now and then diversify the general gloom of his stanzas;
but, even then, an air of sadness still pervades them. More I shall
find to say on the special features of Branwell's poems in the later
pages of the present work.
He wrote the following verses in 1842:
THE EPICUREAN'S SONG.
'The visits of Sorrow
Say, why should we mourn?
Since the sun of to-morrow
May shine on its urn;
And all that we think such pain
Will have departed,--then
Bear for a moment what cannot return;
'For past time has taken
Each hour that it gave,
And they never awaken
From yesterday's grave;
So surely we may defy
Shadows, like memory,
Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.
'From the depths where they're falling
Nor pleasure, nor pain,
Despite our recalling,
Can reach us again;
Though we brood over them,
Nought can recover them,
Where they are laid, they must ever remain.
'So seize we the present,
And gather its flowers,
For,--mournful or pleasant,--
'Tis all that is ours;
While daylight we're wasting,
The evening is hasting,
And night follows fast on vanishing hours.
'Yes,--and we, when night comes,
Whatever betide,
Must die as our fate dooms,
And sleep by their side;
For _change_ is the only thing
Always continuing;
And it sweeps creation away with its tide.'
Here Branwell, writing, contrary to his custom, in a gay mood, forgets
the failures of the past, diverting his mind from them by seeking
serenity in the diversions which now and then lighten his path. He is
perfectly conscious of the fleeting nature of earthly things; and,
with that natural and felicitous faculty of versification with which
his images and figures are invariably described, he invests the
Epicurean with the hopes of the Optimist, or with the indifference of
the Stoic to the shadows which ever and anon dim the pleasures of
human existence. There is nothing assuredly in this lyric of the
'pulpit twang,' to which Miss Robinson refers, nor is it a 'weak and
characterless effusion.'
To the year 1842 belongs the following song which in feeling reminds
one of Burns' 'Auld Lang Syne.' The subject, however, is distinct, and
is pervaded by a profound sentiment of enduring affection, and is
expressive of the deepest feeling in reference to it.
SONG.
'Should life's first feelings be forgot,
As Time leaves years behind?
Should man's for ever changing lot
Work changes in the mind?
'Should space, that severs heart from heart,
The heart's best thoughts destroy?
Should years, that bid our youth depart,
Bid youthful memories die?
'Oh! say not that these coming years
Will warmer friendships bring;
For friendship's joys, and hopes, and fears,
From deeper fountains spring.
'Its feelings to the _heart_ belong;
Its sign--the glistening eye,
While new affections on the _tongue_,
Arise and live and die.
'So, passing crowds may _smiles_ awake
The passing hour to cheer;
But only old acquaintance' sake
Can ever form a tear.'
Leyland was himself a poet, as I have said, and a literary critic of
ability and judgment. Branwell submitted some poems to him for
opinion, and he advised his friend to publish them with his name
appended, rather than under the pseudonym of 'Northangerland,' for he
considered them creditable to his genius. But Branwell, on July 12th,
1842, writing to Leyland, asking some technical questions, says, in a
postscript, 'Northangerland has so long wrought on in secret and
silence that he dare not take your kind encouragement in the light
which _vanity_ would prompt him to do.'
On August 10th, 1842, he wrote to Leyland in reference to a monument,
which that sculptor had recently put up at Haworth, and he concluded
by saying:
'When you see Mr. Constable--to whom I shall write directly,--be
kind enough to tell him that--owing to my absence from home when it
arrived, and to the carelessness of those who neglected to give it me
on my return,--I have only _now_ received his note. Its injunctions
shall be gladly attended to; but he would better please me by
refraining from any slurs on the fair fame of Charles Freeman or
Benjamin Caunt, Esquires.'
Branwell did not lose his early interest in the 'noble science,' but
continued it with a half-serious constancy. Constable and Leyland
regarded the pugilistic encounters of the 'Ring' as brutal and
degrading, but Branwell always professed to defend its champions with
energy and zeal; and in this letter he playfully alludes to two of
them. Among his literary labours of the year 1842 is the following
poem. It is entitled:
NOAH'S WARNING OVER METHUSALEH'S GRAVE.
'Brothers and men! one moment stay
Beside your latest patriarch's grave,
While God's just vengeance yet delay,
While God's blest mercy yet can save.
'Will you compel my tongue to say,
That underneath this nameless sod
Your hands, with mine, have laid to-day
The _last_ on earth who walked with God?
'Shall the pale corpse, whose hoary hairs
Are just surrendered to decay,
Dissolve the chain which bound our years
To hundred ages passed away?
'Shall six-score years of warnings dread
Die like a whisper on the wind?
Shall the dark doom above your head,
Its blinded victims darker find?
'Shall storms from heaven _without_ the world,
Find wilder storms from hell _within_?
Shall long-stored, late-come wrath be hurled;
Or,--will you, can you turn from sin?
'Have patience, if too plain I speak,
For time, my sons, is hastening by;
Forgive me if my accents break:
Shall _I_ be saved and _Nature_ die?
'Forgive that pause:--one look to Heaven
Too plainly tells me, he is gone,
Who long with me in vain had striven
For earth and for its peace alone.
'He's gone!--my Father--full of days,--
From life which left no joy for him;
Born in creation's earliest blaze;
Dying--himself, its latest beam.
'But he is gone! and, oh, behold,
Shown in his death, God's latest sign!
Than which more plainly never told
An Angel's presence His design.
'By it, the evening beams withdrawn
Before a starless night descend;
By it, the last blest spirit born
From this beginning of an end;
'By all the strife of civil war
That beams within yon fated town;
By all the heart's worst passions there,
That call so loud for vengeance down;
'By that vast wall of cloudy gloom,
Piled boding round the firmament;
By all its presages of doom,
Children of men--Repent! Repent!'
This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and
dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of
Branwell's mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic
and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and
indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of
his sisters, may be noticed in it.
In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell's
health became a cause of anxiety to the Bronte family. Acquainted as
they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they
sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had
been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread
over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend--Mr. Grundy--referring
to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had
been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy,
of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to
her death:
'I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing
such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure;
and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days
connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last
saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in
India or ----, since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most
effectual cure. But you don't like croaking, I know well, only I
request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten
_you_, but _myself_.'[1]
[1] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 83.
Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their
aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred.
Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the
following version of that lady's will. She says:
'The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint
of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces.
Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless
expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted
in her will.'[2]
[2] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xi.
Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this
author, says:
'Miss Branwell's will had to be made known. The little property that
she had saved out of her frugal income was all left to her three
nieces. Branwell had been her darling, the only son, called by her
name; but his disgrace had wounded her too deeply. He was not even
mentioned in her will.'[3]
[3] 'Emily Bronte,' p. 102.
Miss Elizabeth Branwell had made her will in the year 1833 (when her
nephew was about fifteen years of age), by which she left the
following items to the children of Mr. Bronte:--
To Charlotte, an Indian Workbox.
To Emily Jane, a Workbox with China top, and an Ivory Fan.
To Branwell, a Japanese Dressing-case.
To Anne, her Watch, Eye Glass, and Chain.
Amongst these three nieces, her rings, silver spoons, books, clothes,
&c., were to be divided as their father should think proper. Her
money, arising from various sources, she left in trust for the benefit
of her nieces, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, and Elizabeth Jane,
the daughter of her sister, Jane Kingston, to be equally divided among
them, when the youngest should have attained the age of twenty-one
years. But, if these died, all was to go to her niece, Anne Kingston,
and if she died, the accumulated money was to be divided between the
children of her 'dear brother and sisters.' Had Branwell, who was one
of these 'children,' survived his own sisters, and the cousin referred
to in the will, he would have been one, if not the sole, recipient of
the accumulated money in question. This contingency was present to
Miss Branwell's mind when she made the bequest, and it was never
either altered or revoked.
It is amazing that so much ignorance should have been displayed on a
subject so easily capable of being correctly stated; but it is
lamentable that this ignorance should have led the biographers of the
Brontes, by erroneous statements, to inflict additional and unmerited
injury on Branwell.