Spellbound by Emily Brontë

Originally composed in 1837, this poem was published under the author’s male pen name of Ellis Bell, along with works by her sisters Charlotte and Anne, in ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell’ in 1846. Some critics have suggested that the short work tells the tragic story of a mother who has left her baby to die of exposure in a winter storm, but finds herself unable to leave the child’s side.

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.