“The Consolation”, p. 14
To Cowper and other poems : autograph manuscript of 9 poems, signed, 1842–1845
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1900
“The Consolation” (pp. 13–16)
Dated 7 November 1843, when Brontë was twenty-three. Written in the voice of Hespera Caverndel, a character in the Gondal saga. First published in Poems (1846). Published in Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (London: Smith Elder, 1850) with title “Lines Written from Home” and revisions by Charlotte Brontë. Poem 25 in Chitham (1979); also published in The Brontës: Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal. Selected Writings, ed. Christine Alexander (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 466–67.
There is a fire whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past
And so though still where’er I roam
Cold stranger glances meet my eye
Though when my spirit sinks in wo
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh
Though solitude endured too long
Bids youthful joys too soon decay
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue
And overclouds my noon of day
When kindly thoughts that would have way
Flow back discouraged to my breast
Text as published in Poems (1846)
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.
And so, though still, where’er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though, when my spirit sinks in woe,
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh;
Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts, that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast;—
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