Victorian Verse - I Now Had Only to Retrace - Charlotte Bronte

The date of publication (1934) suggests that this is, again, a poem that has been dredged from the numerous unpublished manuscripts of the Brontes’ which have been collected by various institutions and scholars.  The Brontes are “big business” in the academic world – because much of their work was unpublished and the manuscripts either destroyed or scattered.  Victor Neufeldt, in his “The Poems of Charlotte Bronte: A New Text and Commentary” (Routledge. 2015) puts the date as “late 1846 - early 1847”, in the same period as the fragment “The House was Still” and the publication of “Jane Eyre”.  This makes it too early to be a poem mourning the death of her three surviving siblings, all of whom died 1848 – 1849.  There is no doubt, however, that the poem is about loss, and at the end, there is a strong suggestion that it is about death.  Another possibility, which the idea of “retracing” supports, is that this is a reference to her doomed infatuation with Monsieur Heger, the married owner of the school where she and Emily went to study French in 1842 - 1843 and to where she returned in 1844. 

The poem is again in ballad metre.  It clearly evokes the changeable, stormy weather of the Yorkshire Moors which forms a backdrop to so much of the Brontes’ prose and poetry.

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

It appears that the poet has been out for a walk on the moors and is now returning the way she has just come to get  home - she "only" has to retrace her steps and it will lead her back.    Then, she was following ("chase") a rainbow.  The rainbow is a symbol of peace and reconciliation, as it was the sign God gave to Noah promising never again to punish Man as he did with the Flood.  Rainbows also, in legend, have a pot of gold where the bow touches the ground - again a suggestion that this is a metaphor for a former promise.  Pots of gold, of course, never materialise. On the way out, she walked unafraid and with “ardour” – passion, eagerness.  However, on her return journey there is an impending storm which changes the outlook of the heath.

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

The poet is quite specific about the direction in which she is walking.  Behind her is the West, which is still sunny even though the sun is setting, in front of her is the East, where a storm is brooding.  The East is, of course, a symbol of the Resurrection, from which the light of a new dawn breaks, so this darkness in the East is full of foreboding.

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

The storm brings with it rain and wind and the sound of rushing water in a nightmarish personification.  The technique of repetition is used again as in “Autumn …” This is a common feature of ballads which were originally oral poems.  Repetition helps to fix the ideas in the listener’s mind, and also gives the singer memorable points of reference. 

As the sky in the East darkens, the darkness is also personified as a black “horror” – “ebon” is short for “ebony”, a dark black wood. 

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 

In the darkness, the narrator becomes lost and climbs a hill, hoping to see a streak of light from the setting sun in the West – the “parting streak”.  However, this light is directly equated with her “life’s light” – which suggests that the walk is a metaphor for the loss of a significant person in her life, whom she seeks. 

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

However, the West, where she expected to see the “light”, is as black as if no light had ever been there.  The metaphorical suggestion recurs in the description of the light as “red” – the colour of passion – and “enkindled” which means to light a fire – both images of love, extinguished by the dark.

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

Not only is the West dark, but she also doubts whether light will return to the East, through the doors (“portals”) of morning, as the East (“orient”) is dark as well.  The reference to dawn’s “portals” is classical.  The “funeral North” too is in darkness and similarly mourning for the dead or lost.  The words in brackets are assumed, as the manuscript is blank or unreadable, as indicated in the anthology.

The poem suggests hopelessness, and abandonment.  It combines suggestions of the loss of life and the loss of love, but in its emphasis on West and East, and the biblical references, it also has a quasi-religious overtone.  It could possibly be considered as a spiritual response to the loss of faith.