Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
This excerpt from the short poem "Fall, leaves, fall" is about finding beauty in a passing moment. The speaker appreciates the image of leaves falling from a tree as they die. This signals the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, as is suggested by the note about the longer night and shorter day. The passage adopts an interesting perspective, choosing to note the shifting of the seasons and the turning of the leaves as something beautiful, even as it invokes death and mortality.
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
In "No Coward Soul Is Mine," the speaker definitively claims that her "soul" is entirely unafraid. She relates to her faith in God and her appreciation of "Heaven's glories," which she believes safeguard her against frightening things. What she is referring to is a belief in the power of the divine that shows an understanding of its omnipotence. She feels "armed" against fear because she views her God as an almighty force, far above anything in "the world's storm-troubled sphere."
Why I have persevered to shun
The common paths that others run,
And on a strange road journeyed on,
This poem features a speaker who questions why she has chosen to live her life in a way that is out of the ordinary. She goes on to describe the various avenues that she has elected not to pursue and how her choices have led to certain difficulties in her life. This particular quote has some autobiographical undercurrents, as it bears certain parallels to Brontë's own life, in which she was often seen as strange and unusual by members of her social circle.
We thought, “When winter comes again,
Where will these bright things be?
All vanished, like a vision vain,
An unreal mockery!"
The following passage is from "A Day Dream." This longer poem depicts a scene in which the speaker cannot enjoy a lovely summer day because she is too preoccupied with the fact that it will end. The particular quote really summarizes why the speaker feels the way she does. She states that her happiness about this day is hampered by the reality that all of these "bright things" will disappear and only be remembered as some sort of "unreal mockery." She feels that their eventual end makes them not worth enjoying in the moment.
And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
This passage is the closing stanza of the poem, "Remembrance." In it, the speaker describes her desire to move on with her life after having spent many years grieving her dead lover. She notes that her memory of him is a double-edged sword. It gives her momentary joy but causes her "rapturous pain" when she chooses to "indulge" in it. She acknowledges that she needs to let go of this memory of him because every time she goes back to it, it becomes harder to return to the world of her present again.
