How Still, How Happy!

How still, how happy! Those are words

That once would scarce agree together;

I loved the plashing of the surge,

The changing heaven the breezy weather,

More than smooth seas and cloudless skies

And solemn, soothing, softened airs

That in the forest woke no sighs

And from the green spray shook no tears.

How still, how happy! now I feel

Where silence dwells is sweeter far

Than laughing mirth's most joyous swell

However pure its raptures are.

Come, sit down on this sunny stone:

'Tis wintry light o'er flowerless moors,

But sit, for we are all alone

And clear expand heaven's breathless shores.

I could think in the withered grass

Spring's budding wreaths we might discern;

The violet's eye might shyly flash

And young leaves shoot among the fern.

It is but thought, full many a night

The snow shall clothe those hills afar

And storms shall add a drearier blight

And winds shall wage a wilder war,

Before the lark may herald in

Fresh foliage twined with blossoms fair

And summer days again begin

Their glory, haloed crown to wear.

Yet my heart loves December's smile

As much as July's golden beam;

Then let us sit and watch the while

The blue ice curdling on the stream.

Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë (born July 30, 1818, Thornton, Yorkshire, England—died December 19, 1848, Haworth, Yorkshire) English novelist and poet who produced but one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a highly imaginative work of passion and hate set on the Yorkshire moors. Emily was perhaps the greatest of the three Brontë sisters, but the record of her life is extremely meagre, for she was silent and reserved and left no correspondence of interest, and her single novel darkens rather than solves the mystery of her spiritual existence. Emily went on to write almost 200 poems in her life but only a small fraction were published in her life time (Brownson). Her only novel,Wuthering Heights, is one of her most famous works. Emily was often seen as a very strange woman who never was able to leave this isolation. In September 1848. She became sick with consumption and refused medical attention in October 1848. Emily sadly died at the age of 30 only a few months later on December 9 (Brownson).

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