Victorian Poet: Emily Bronte (1818–1848)

“No Coward Soul”

  NO coward soul is mine,       

No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:        

  I see Heaven’s glories shine,  

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.     

  O God within my breast,                 5

Almighty, ever-present Deity!   

  Life—that in me has rest,       

As I—undying Life—have power in Thee!       

  Vain are the thousand creeds 

That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;                  10

  Worthless as wither’d weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,           

  To waken doubt in one          

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;           

  So surely anchor’d on         15

The steadfast rock of immortality.         

  With wide-embracing love     

Thy Spirit animates eternal years,         

  Pervades and broods above,  

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.                    20

  Though earth and man were gone,      

And suns and universes cease to be,     

  And Thou were left alone,      

Every existence would exist in Thee.     

  There is not room for Death,           25

Nor atom that his might could render void:        

  Thou—Thou art Being and Breath,     

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.