Emily Brontë , "A little while, a little while"
A little while, a little while,
The noisy crowd are barred away;
And I can sing and I can smile
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A little while I've holiday!
Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart?
Full many a land invites thee now;
And places near and far apart
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Have rest for thee, my weary brow.
There is a spot 'mid barren hills
Where winter howls and driving rain,
But if the dreary tempest chills
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There is a light that warms again.
The house is old, the trees are bare,
And moonless bends the misty dome,
But what on earth is half so dear,
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So longed for as the hearth of home?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The garden-walk with weeds o'ergrown ,
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I love them all -- how I love them all!
Shall I go there? or shall I seek
Another clime, another sky,
Where tongues familiar music speak
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In accents dear to memory?
Yes, as I mused, the naked room,
The flickering firelight died away
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
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I passed to bright, unclouded day --
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
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Of mountains circling every side;
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
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Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere --
That was the scene; I knew it well,
I knew the path-ways far and near
That winding o'er each billowy swell,
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Marked out the tracks of wandering deer.
Could I have lingered but an hour,
It had well paid a week of toil,
But truth has banished fancy's power;
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I hear my dungeon bars recoil --
Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by
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And given me back to weary care.