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Emily Jane Brontë (1818-1848)

The Night is Darkening round Me


              1THE night is darkening round me,
              2    The wild winds coldly blow ;
              3But a tyrant spell has bound me,
              4    And I cannot, cannot go.

              5The giant trees are bending
              6    Their bare boughs weighed with snow ;
              7The storm is fast descending,
              8    And yet I cannot go.

              9Clouds beyond clouds above me,
            10    Wastes beyond wastes below ;
            11But nothing drear can move me :
            12    I will not, cannot go.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Emily Brontë, The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, ed. Clement Shorter, collected by C. W. Hatfield (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923): 74. PR 4172 A1 1923 Robarts Library
First publication date: 1923
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/23

Composition date: November 1837
Form: quatrains
Rhyme: abab

Other poems by Emily Jane Brontë

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