 |
| Mother's Day at the Bronte Parsonage Museum |
Mother's Day 2019
We chose to be in
Haworth on
Mother’s Day. It may seem counterintuitive since the
Brontë Parsonage was a home bereft of a mother. Mother Maria died soon after the famous family
moved to the town of Haworth from Thornton in Bradford. Therefore, the Parsonage (during the years 1820 to 1861) relied for maternal influences on
Aunt Branwell for 21 years, on home helps
Tabby Aykroyd and
Martha Brown and the sisterly love and mutual support of
Charlotte, Emily and
Anne.
When imagination once runs riot
Every time I walk round the
Brontë Parsonage Museum (and I have done it over 20 times now, including the times I took students there) I spot something new or feel something different. This time I found myself imagining the
love, rivalry and intensity of the sibling relationships; how they must have been constantly aware of where each other was in the house, the changing dynamics when each of them left for a time, the circumstances that brought each of them back. And the changing atmosphere when, one by one, they died.
Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee
The extra incentive to visit on
Mother’s Day was the opportunity to enjoy a unique audio-hiking experience. The
Parsonage Museum have commissioned composer
Adrian McNally to set to music a selection of
Emily Brontë’s poems. Adrian composed by day at
Ponden Hall (historically a place that sheltered
Branwell, Emily and
Anne along with servant
Sarah Garrs during the
Crow Hill Bog Burst, a thunderstorm and mudslide in 1824.) Adrian then practised and performed the music
on the piano you can see today in Mr Brontë’s study (played by Emily during her lifetime, also by Anne.) Rachel and Becky Unthank (folk group, The Unthanks) have performed and recorded the poems and the Parsonage have devised a walk up onto
Penistone Hill so you can listen to the songs/poems as you follow a 45-minute climb and descent onto the nearby moor.
Song Cycle in order of audio experience in Haworth
1. Deep deep down in the silent grave
With no-one to mourn above
Here with my knee upon thy stone
I bid adieu to feelings gone
I leave with thee my tears and pain
And rush into the world again
O come again what chains withhold
The steps that used so fleet to be
Come leave thy dwelling dark and cold
Once more to visit me
Was it with the fields of green
Blowing flower and budding tree
With the summer heaven serene
That thou didst visit me?
No ‘t was not the flowery plain
No ‘t was not the fragrant air
Summer skies will come again
But thou wilt not be there
2. She dried her tears and they did smile
To see her cheeks' returning glow
How little dreaming all the while
That full heart throbbed to overflow.
With that sweet look and lively tone
And bright eye shining all the day
They could not guess at midnight lone
How she would weep the time away.
3. I’m happiest when most away
I can bear my soul from its home of clay
On a windy night when the moon is bright
And the eye can wander through worlds of light—
When I am not and none beside—
Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky—
But only spirit wandering wide
Through infinite immensity.
4. Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall nature cease to bow?
Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving -
Come back and dwell with me.
I know my mountain breezes
Enchant and soothe thee still -
I know my sunshine pleases
Despite thy wayward will.
When day with evening blending
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolatry.
I've watched thee every hour;
I know my mighty sway,
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away.
Few hearts to mortals given
On earth so wildly pine;
Yet few would ask a Heaven
More like this Earth than thine.
Then let my winds caress thee;
Thy comrade let me be -
Since nought beside can bless thee
Return and dwell with me.
5. O evening, why is thy light so sad
Why is the sun's last ray so cold?
Hush our smile is as ever glad
But thy heart is growing old.
It's over now; I've known it all;
I'll hide it in my heart no more,
But back again that night recall,
And think the fearful vision o'er.
The evening sun in cloudless shine
Has passed from summer's heaven divine,
And dark the shades of twilight grew,
And stars were in the depth of blue,
And in the heath or mountains far
From human eye and human care,
With thoughtful heart and tearful eye,
I sadly watched that solemn sky.
6. High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars;
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.
All down the mountain sides wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the life-giving wind;
Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending,
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending,
Wider and deeper their waters extending,
Leaving a desolate desert behind.
Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,
Changing forever from midnight to noon;
Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,
Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.
7. Lines
The soft unclouded blue of air,
The earth as golden, green, and fair,
And bright as Eden's used to be,
That air and earth have rested me,
Laid on the grass I lapsed away,
Sank back again to childhood's day;
All harsh thoughts perished, memory mild
Subdued both grief and passion wild.
But did the sunshine even now
That bathed his stern and swarthy brow,
Oh did it wake—I long to know—
One whisper, one sweet dream in him,
One lingering joy that years ago
Had faded—lost in distance dim?
That iron man was born like me,
And he was once an ardent boy;
He must have felt in infancy
The glory of a summer sky.
Though storms untold his mind has tossed,
He cannot utterly have lost
Remembrance of his early home—
So lost that not a gleam may come.
No vision of his mother's face
When she so fondly mild set free
Her darling child from her embrace
To roam till eve at liberty.
Nor of his haunts, nor of the flowers,
His tiny hand would grateful bear,
Returning from the darkening bowers,
To weave into her glossy hair.
I saw the light breeze kiss his cheek,
His fingers 'mid the roses twined;
I watched to mark one transient streak
Of pensive softness shade his mind.
The open window showed around
A glowing park and glorious sky,
And thick woods swelling with the sound
Of nature's mingled harmony.
Silent he sat. That stormy breast
At length I said has deigned to rest;
At length above that spirit flows
The waveless ocean of repose.
Let me draw near, 'twill soothe to view
His dark eyes dimmed with holy dew;
Remorse even now may wake within
And half unchain his soul from sin.
Perhaps this is the destined hour
When Hell shall lose its fatal power,
And Heaven itself shall bend above
To hail the soul redeemed by love.
Unmarked I gazed, my idle thought
Passed with the ray whose shine it caught;
One glance revealed how little care
He felt for all the beauty there.
Oh! crime can make the heart grow old
Sooner than years of wearing woe,
Can turn the warmest bosom cold
As winter wind or polar snow.
8. Remembrance
Cold in the earth - and the deep snow piled above thee.
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on that northern shore;
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?
Cold in the earth - and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has lightened up my heaven;
No second morn has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.
But when the days of golden dreams had perished
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears of useless passion -
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.
And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
9. The night is darkening round me
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
I'll come when thou art saddest,
Laid alone in the darkened room,
When the mad day's mirth has vanished,
And the smile of joy is banished
From evening's chilly gloom.
I'll come when the heart's real feeling
Has entire, unbiased sway,
And my influence o'er thee stealing,
Grief deepening, joy congealing,
Shall bear thy soul away.
Listen! 'tis just the hour,
The awful time for thee.
Dost thou not feel upon thy soul
A flood of strange sensations roll,
Forerunners of a sterner power,
Heralds of me?
I would have touched the heavenly key
That spoke alike of bliss and thee;
I would have woke the entrancing song,
But its words died upon my tongue.
And then I knew that hallowed strain
Would never speak of joy again,
And then I felt . . .
The night is darkening round me
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
And I cannot, cannot go.
And I cannot, cannot go.
