poem #42

No Coward Soul is Mine

by Emily Bronte

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

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hath rest

As I Undying Life, have power in thee

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though Earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And though wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being and Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed