by Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848)
The night of storms has passed
Language: English
The night of storms has passed The sunshine bright and clear Gives glory to the verdant waste And warms the breezy air And I would leave my bed Its cheering smile to see To chase the visions from my head Whose forms have troubled me In my all the hours of gloom My soul was rapt away I dreamt I stood by a marble tomb Where royal corpses lay It was just the time of eve When parted ghosts might come Above their prisoned dust to grieve And wail their woeful doom And truly at my side I saw a shadowy thing Most dim and yet its presence there Curdled my blood with ghastly fear And ghastlier wondering My breath I could not draw The air seemed [uncanny]1 But still my eyes with maddening gaze Were fixed upon its fearful face And its were fixed on me I fell down on the stone But could not turn away My words died in a voiceless moan When I began to pray And still it bent above Its features full in view It seemed close by and yet more far Then this world from the farthest star That tracks the boundless blue Indeed 'twas not the space Of earth or time between But the sea of death's eternity The gulf o'er which mortality Has never never been O bring not back again The horror of that hour When its lips opened And a sound Awoke the stillness reigning round Faint as a dream but the Earth shrank And heavens lights shivered 'Neath its power
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)Note: in the Fisk work, this is sung by Catherine
1 Bronte: "ranny"
Authorship:
- by Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Terry Fisk , "The night of storms has passed", published 2002 [voice, piano], from Wuthering Heights, no. 25. [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Terry Fisk
This text was added to the website: 2004-03-22
Line count: 48
Word count: 262