Explore "If This Be All. Acton Bell" by Charlotte Brontë on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
O God! if this indeed be all / That Life can show to me; / If on my aching brow may fall / No freshening dew from Thee;
If with no brighter light than this / The lamp of hope may glow, / And I may only dream of bliss, / And wake to weary woe;
If friendship's solace must decay, / When other joys are gone, / And love must keep so far away, / While I go wandering on, --
Wandering and toiling without gain, / The slave of others' will, / With constant care, and frequent pain, / Despised, forgotten still;
Grieving to look on vice and sin, / Yet powerless to quell / The silent current from within, / The outward torrent's swell
While all the good I would impart, / The feelings I would share, / Are driven backward to my heart, / And turned to wormwood there;
If clouds must EVER keep from sight / The glories of the Sun, / And I must suffer Winter's blight, / Ere Summer is begun;
If Life must be so full of care, / Then call me soon to thee; / Or give me strength enough to bear / My load of misery.