#55 Emily Brontë

When weary with the long day’s care,

And earthly change from pain to pain,

And lost, and ready to despair,

Thy kind voice calls me back again:

Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,

While then canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without;

The world within I doubly prize;

Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,

And cold suspicion never rise;

Where thou, and I, and Liberty,

Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it, that all around

Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,

If but within our bosom’s bound

We hold a bright, untroubled sky,

Warm with ten thousand mingled rays

Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason, indeed, may oft complain

For Nature’s sad reality,

And tell the suffering heart how vain

Its cherished dreams must always be;

And Truth may rudely trample down

The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:

But thou art ever there, to bring

The hovering vision back, and breathe

New glories o’er the blighted spring,

And call a lovelier Life from Death.

And whisper, with a voice divine,

Of real worlds, as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,

Yet, still, in evening’s quiet hour,

With never-failing thankfulness,

I welcome thee, Benignant Power;

Sure solacer of human cares,

And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

Hello my lovelies,

Above is the poem that saved my life: To Imagination.

When considering a poem, the first thing that should be noted is how that first reading makes you feel. Each poem evokes emotions, it can speak to your Spirit, it can open up your mind and heart; this is what it did for me.

I was so lost as a young teenager when I first read it. I may not fully remember how powerful it was in the early days, but my heart opens every time I read it. How powerful our imagination can be!

I have always loved poems with Nature involved, and Emily Brontë mastered this every time, I often tried to implant this in my own writing when figuring out my own style, my own rhythm. To Imagination has a powerful pattern, Brontë manages to make a pentameter of almost sing-song like rhyme. This poem kept me going. It encouraged me to have outlets and trust in my own sovereignty. There is the element of sky, and gentle glimmers in what can be seen as the mundane. There is beauty around us and within us.

I always feel hope and acknowledgement in this poem; I have the last couplet tattooed on me for a reason. Imagination can bring pain, intrusive thoughts are real, but it can always instil hope and give us the power to alter our life. I know there is hope. I keep saying that, “hope”, but it is in the core of all of us.

In this ode there is much left unsaid but what can be inferred. I recommend this poem to anyone who could do with feeling seen, anyone who is finding more despair in their life, anyone who needs to take some comfort in soft power.