by Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848)
To Imagination
Language: English
When weary with the long day's care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost, and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again - O my true friend, I am not lone While thou canst speak with such a tone! So hopeless is the world without, The world within I doubly prize; Thy world where guile and hate and doubt And cold suspicion never rise; Where thou and I and Liberty Have undisputed sovereignty. What matters it that all around Danger and grief and darkness lie, If but within our bosom's bound We hold a bright unsullied sky, Warm with ten thousand mingled rays Of suns that know no winter days? Reason indeed may oft complain For Nature's sad reality, And tell the suffering heart how vain Its cherished dreams must always be; And Truth may rudely trample down The flowers of Fancy newly blown. But thou art ever there to bring The hovering visions back and breathe New glories o'er the blighted spring And call a lovelier life from death, And whisper with a voice divine Of real worlds as bright as thine. I trust not to thy phantom bliss, Yet still in evening's quiet hour With never-failing thankfulness I welcome thee, benignant power, Sure solacer of human care And brighter hope when hope despairs.
J. Mitchell sets stanzas 1, 5
Text Authorship:
- by Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848) [author's text not yet checked 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 David Leisner (b. 1958), "To Imagination", 1986 [ voice and piano or guitar ], from Confiding, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Mitchell (b. 1941), "To Imagination", op. 17 no. 3 (1976), stanzas 1,5, from Visions from the Earth, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
Research team for this page: Victoria Brago , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 36
Word count: 219