"The North Wind", p. 1
Collection of poems : autograph manuscript signed : [Haworth]
The Henry Houston Bonnell Brontë Collection. Bequest of Helen Safford Bonnell, 1969
“The North Wind” (pp. 1–3)
Composed 26 January 1838, a few days after Brontë’s eighteenth birthday. Written in the voice of Alexandrina Zenobia, a character in the Gondal saga. First published in Poems (1902), pp. 187–88. Poem 5 in Chitham (1979); pp. 455–57 in Alexander (2010).
The North Wind —
––––––––
That wind is from the North I know it well.
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
Then faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmers mournfully
I know its language thus it speaks to me —
“I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains – and they still are free,
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak, and drear,
And stern, and lovely, as they used to be
“When thou a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O’er rocks and glens and snowy heights
Didst often love to stray.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 BronteMA2696_5.pdf | 20.04 MB |
"The North Wind", p. 2
Collection of poems : autograph manuscript signed : [Haworth]
The Henry Houston Bonnell Brontë Collection. Bequest of Helen Safford Bonnell, 1969
“The North Wind” (pp. 1–3)
Composed 26 January 1838, a few days after Brontë’s eighteenth birthday. Written in the voice of Alexandrina Zenobia, a character in the Gondal saga. First published in Poems (1902), pp. 187–88. Poem 5 in Chitham (1979); pp. 455–57 in Alexander (2010).
“I’ve blown the pure* untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows,
And I have howled in caverns wild,
Where thou a joyous mountain child
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed but thou
Art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be;
No voice but mine can reach thine ear
And Heaven has kindly sent me here,
To mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell the[e] of the cherrished land
Of thy nativity.”
Blow on wild wind, thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear;
Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far,
*Note: Chitham (1979) transcribes the starred word as “wild,” but the manuscript reads “pure.”
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| BronteMA2696_5.pdf | 20.04 MB |