For some reason, this morning, along with the sensation of lightness and well-being, I found myself reciting, in my head, Emily Bronte’s poem “Often Rebuked”. It possibly is my favorite poem. Not in terms of its literary value, or its lasting power, or anything like that. It is my favorite poem in a very narcisstic sense. I read it, and feel that it is coming FROM me. It is IN me. She is speaking ME to me. I sound like a lunatic. It’s not even 9 a.m. <\/p>\n
“Often Rebuked” is one of those poems which, regardless of the poet’s talent with language, image, metaphor, provides a shock of recognition. “I know that…I know that…that is me…” Here’s the poem (I know it by heart): <\/p>\n
Often Rebuked
\nOften rebuked, yet always back returning
\nTo those first feelings that were born with me,
\nAnd leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
\nFor idle dreams of things which cannot be: <\/p>\n
Today, I will not seek the shadowy region:
\nIts unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
\nAnd visions rising, legion after legion,
\nBring the unreal world too strangely near. <\/p>\n
I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
\nAnd not in paths of high morality,
\nAnd not among the half-distinguished faces,
\nThe clouded forms of long-past history. <\/p>\n
I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:
\nIt vexes me to choose another guide:
\nWhere the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
\nWhere the wild wind blows on the mountain-side. <\/p>\n
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
\nMore glory and more grief than I can tell:
\nThe earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
\nCan center both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For some reason, this morning, along with the sensation of lightness and well-being, I found myself reciting, in my head, Emily Bronte’s poem “Often Rebuked”. It possibly is my favorite poem. Not in terms of its literary value, or its … Continue reading