Emily Bronte Poems

In "The Night Wind", the speaker is visited by a wind who speaks to her and tries to engage her. The wind is a spiritual force of some sort. Its nature though, is debatable. Is is it her own imagination? Is is it a dark force? Would it lure her toward death -- or would it lure her away from it?

I see the wind as a positive force. There are hints that the speaker is quite depressed -- she wants to be left to her cares and worries. When she says, "Leave my human feelings in their own course to flow," it suggests that the wind wants to carry her away from those worries. The last lines surely reference death, but what the wind says is that the speaker will have time to be alone after she's dead. I think she's already pondering death when that old friend of nature shows up.

There are lines that could be construed as malice on the part of the night wind. At one point, for example, the night wind says that he'll win the speaker against her will. There's a gentler interpretation of those lines, however. How often have we had the experience, when grieving or wallowing in loss, of someone trying to lure us away -- to go out and have a good time? They may I know you don't want to, but you're coming anyway. The behavior of the wind here isn't out of line with our own common experience.

The last lines confirm that it's the speaker herself who's been thinking dark thoughts. The wind tells her that there will be plenty of time for her to be alone (and for him to miss her) once she's in the grave. The implication is that now is a time to live and enjoy.


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"Spellbound" is one of Emile Bronte's Gondola poems. Thus the speaker, who is held in place by some unnamed force even as a storm descends around her, is not to be confused with Emily herself. (Thoughts to ponder: Is it a literal winter storm -- or a metaphorical one? And what is the force that holds her? Is it something sinister -- or might it be love?)


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The guitar is a modern musical image for a nineteenth century poem -- the theme itself is timeless. A woman ponders how the guitar still manages to call up so strongly emotions that have long since ceased to be. The guitar may be the woman's, but we might imagine that someone else played it in a time gone by. Conversely, we could see metaphor in the opening lines and not necessarily assume that the once loved person has played the instrument.

Bronte uses several metaphors to make vivid a seeming paradox. A torrent of emotion pours forth, yet it seems that the emotion no longer has a source! Doesn't water need a source from which to flood?


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In "Love and Friendship", Emily Bronte uses a nature metaphor to contrast the nature of romantic love and friendship. The rose -- romantic love -- blooms brightly in the fair months, but in the winter, its the holly that retains its beauty. Those summer months, with their dazzling display of color, might be thought of as youth or as the excitement of a new relationship. The speaker admonishes others to give their love to the holly -- the true friend -- even now, in the fair months.


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"The visionary" is credited to Emily Bronte, but her sister, Charlotte, apparently wrote the last eight lines. The additions give a more hopeful feel to the poem; the speaker waits, with faith and constancy, for the return of a loved one.

In the early stanzas, we find her in a warm, comfortable home, but with her heart far away -- in a sense, tracking someone who may be out there in the snow and cold. We learn that she's not concerned with those that ridicule her. Her belief in "the wanderer" is hinted at in the reference to the "angel" that "nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow". It's not until the last two stanzas (Charlotte's?) that it is clearly stated that she believes in that wanderer's love for her -- though the title might hint at it. (Questions to consider: What is the connotation of the word "visionary"? What might the speaker suggest by referring to herself as a visionary?)

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