High waving heather ‘neath stormy
blasts bending
High waving heather ‘neath stormy
blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright
shining stars,
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven
descending,
Man’s spirit away from its drear
dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the
bars.
All down the mountain sides wild
forests lending
One mighty voice to the life-giving
wind,
Rivers their banks in their jubilee
rending,
Fast through the valleys a reckless
course wending,
Wider and deeper their waters
extending,
Leaving a desolate desert behind.
Shining and lowering and swelling and
dying,
Changing forever from midnight to
noon;
Roaring like thunder, like soft music
sighing,
Shadows on shadows advancing and
flying,
Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom
defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.
Emily Jane Brontë
JS: If all four siblings were alive today, what would you ask them?
AD: Anne’s last letter contained a reference to the
many ‘plans and schemes’ that were in her head. I’d
like to ask her about those. Emily I’d ask, Did you
have a boyfriend?? Was there a second novel? There
aren’t as many questions to ask Charlotte because
there’s a lot of information available; I’d ask her
about her ongoing works. Branwell’s question would
be: where did it all go wrong?
JS: How would you encourage people to connect with them?
AD: Read the novels and walk on the moors. That’s how to really
enter into their creativity.
*This quote comes from Robert Southey, a literary predecessor of
Charlotte Bronte’s who, when she wrote to him as a twenty year
old, replied: “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life,
and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties,
the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and
a recreation.”
Interview by Jane Steele
Emily’s Brontë’s hand-written works are reproduced here by kind
permission.
