Poems reveal a brother’s grief

It seems that hardly a week goes by without a book about the Brontes landing on my desk, leading me to wonder if there could be any corner of their lives left uncovered.

The word ‘poetry’ in the title of Anne Crow’s book about Haworth’s literary giants led me to read on.

While Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte are world-famous for their novels, they are less well-known for their poetry. Their brother Branwell is known more for his failures, while Patrick is usually thought of as their father and Haworth’s vicar rather than as a writer.

All five of them, however, were accomplished poets, as Anne’s book reveals.

This is a rich collection of Bronte poetry, containing a good selection of poems from each writer. The book begins with a chronology of historic events – national, international and Bronte-related – from 1777 to 1861, the years of Patrick’s birth and death, and the poems are set out in the context of the Brontes’ lives.

The pages are illustrated with photographs of buildings and landscapes that inspired the Brontes and pencil drawings depicting rural life at the time. “As far as I know, there is no similar book that concentrates on the poetry written by the four siblings and their father,” says Anne Crow.

“I have tried to make it interesting to those who already love the novels written by the three famous sisters, as well as to tourists who may know very little about the family.”

The book is a fascinating introduction to the Brontes’ poetry, particularly the poems by Patrick which are now out of print.

It was while at Dewsbury Parish Church that Patrick started sending his poetry off for publication. A long poem, Winter Night Meditations, was published anonymously in 1810, and he later adapted it and included it in Cottage Poems, a volume of poetry aimed at ordinary people. Patrick’s religious beliefs and compassion for the poor is reflected in his poetry, although some of it reads like a sermon in which he attempts to offer poverty-stricken parishioners consolation that they will find glory after death.

In Epistle To The Labouring Poor, part of the Cottage Poems collection, he writes: “All you who turn the sturdy soil, Or ply the loom with daily toil, And lowly on through life turmoil for scanty fare … kindly read what I impart; ’tis meant to ward off Satan’s dart.”

One of Branwell’s poems, written after the death of his older sister Elizabeth, is particularly moving. Using a narrator called Harriet, who is mourning the death of a sister, he writes: “They came – they pressed the coffin lid above my Caroline, And then I felt forever hid my sister’s face from mine! There was one moment’s wildered start – one pang remembered well – When first from my unhardened heart the tears of anguish fell.”

You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by the verse that must have come from his own grief.

A gem of a book for anyone interested in the Brontes, poetry or our social history.