Stanzas



= = =Stanzas=

Often rebuked, yet always back returning To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

Today, I will seek not the shadowy region; Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear; And visions rising, legion after legion, Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces, And not in paths of high morality, And not among the half-distinguished faces, The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading- It vexes me to choose another guide- Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding, Where the wild wind blows on the mountainside.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing? More glory and more grief than I can tell: The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

Analysis:
I believe the poem is about Emily's life and the career choice she must make. Eventhough she tends to stray from what she wants to do, it is ingrained in her and undeniable. She will miss out on money and education for a dream that might not happen. She is not looking for an unsure path with unrealistic dreams. Also, she doesn't want to follow in other famous/well known footsteps and do what they did. She will be her own person and be the only one to decide and to choose her own destiny. She wonders what her own path will bring her because no one has taken it before; therefore, she must open her heart to whatever may come.

Back to Emily Brontë

Work Cited:
Brontë, Emily. "Stanzas." __The Best Poems of the English Language__." Ed. Harold Bloom. HarperCollins, 2004. 723.

Amanda Bonner
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