Emily Brontë

By Louise Imogen Guiney
What sacramental hurt that brings
The terror of the truth of things
Had changed thee? Secret be it yet.
’Twas thine, upon a headland set,
To view no isles of man’s delight,
With lyric foam in rainbow flight,
But all a-swing, a-gleam, mid slow uproar,
Black sea, and curved uncouth sea-bitten shore.

Copyright Credit: Louise Imogen Guiney, “Emily Brontë” from Happy Ending: The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guiney. Copyright 1927 and renewed © 1955 by Grace Guiney. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Source: Happy Ending: The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guiney (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1927)