Explore "Past Days. Acton Bell" by Charlotte Brontë on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Tis strange to think there WAS a time / When mirth was not an empty name, / When laughter really cheered the heart, / And frequent smiles unbidden came, / And tears of grief would only flow / In sympathy for others' woe;
When speech expressed the inward thought, / And heart to kindred heart was bare, / And summer days were far too short / For all the pleasures crowded there; / And silence, solitude, and rest, / Now welcome to the weary breast --
Were all unprized, uncourted then -- / And all the joy one spirit showed, / The other deeply felt again; / And friendship like a river flowed, / Constant and strong its silent course, / For nought withstood its gentle force:
When night, the holy time of peace, / Was dreaded as the parting hour; / When speech and mirth at once must cease, / And silence must resume her power; / Though ever free from pains and woes, / She only brought us calm repose.
And when the blessed dawn again / Brought daylight to the blushing skies, / We woke, and not RELUCTANT then, / To joyless LABOUR did we rise; / But full of hope, and glad and gay, / We welcomed the returning day.