My life’s light’s parting streak

Charlotte Brontë, I now had only to retrace (Publ.1934)

I now had only to retrace
The long and lonely road
So lately in the rainbow chase
With fearless ardour trod

Behind I left the sunshine now
The evening setting sun,
Before a storm rolled dark & low
Some gloomy hills upon

It came with rain — it came with wind
With swollen stream it howled
And night advancing black and blind
In ebon horror scowled

Lost in the hills — all painfully
I climbed a heathy peak
I sought I longed afar to see
My life’s light’s parting streak

The West was black as if no day
Had ever lingered there
As if no red, expiring ray
Had tinged the enkindled air

And morning’s portals could not lie
Where yon dark orient spread
The funeral North — the black dark sky
Alike mourned {for the} dead

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