"The Bluebell", p. 17

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Anne Brontë
1820–1849

Collection of poems : autograph manuscript signed : [Haworth]

1838 Jan. 24-1841 Aug. 19

The Henry Houston Bonnell Brontë Collection. Bequest of Helen Safford Bonnell, 1969

MA 2696.5
Description: 

“The Bluebell” (pp. 15–18)

Composed 22 August 1840, when Brontë was twenty. First published in Poems (1902), pp. 198–200. Poem 10 in Chitham (1979).

Transcription: 

My wandering glances fell
Upon a little trembling flower
A single sweet bluebell.

Whence came that rising in my throat
That dimness in my eyes*?
Why did those burning drops distill –
Those bitter feelings rise?

O that Bluebell lone flower recalled to me
My happy child-hood’s hours
When blue bells were a seemed like fairy gifts
A prize among the flowers

Those sunny days of merriment
When heart and soul were free
And when I dwelt with kindred hearts
That loved and cared for me

*Note: Chitham (1979) transcribes the starred word as “eye,” but the manuscript reads “eyes.”

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