"Evening Solace" by Charlotte Brontë

English writer, Charlotte Brontë, is probably best known for her novel, Jane Eyre, although she wrote a handful of other novels as well as many poems. For many years she wrote and published her works under the pseudonym, Currer Bell. The poem, Evening Solace, was first published in 1846 as part of a collection of pieces by Charlotte and her two sisters, Emily and Anne.

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Program Credits

Announcer: Thomas Lamar
Narrator: Nicole Rodrigues
Composer: Brandon Boone
Sound Design & Mixing: Christopher Green
Photography: Frank Meitzke
Producer/Director: J.D. Sutter

Entry on Wikipedia for Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë's Bio on the Poetry Foundation
Poem Analysis by blogger Sally Ren
Poem Analysis by blogger Sharda Lochan

Portrait of Charlotte Brontë by Evert A. Duyckinick, based on a drawing by George Richmond - University of Texas: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/exhibits/portraits/index.php?img=54, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10433

"Evening Solace" by Charlotte Brontë

THE human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­ a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.