Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855 / Yorkshire, England)

SOPHISTICATED POEM.....

a strongly optimistic verse.............

Do I recall correctly from a biography I read years ago about the famous imaginative siblings, that she tried to publish 500 plus times, and never gave up - and then married later - and died in childbirth? She's a wonderful poet!

hmmm... i agree. make the best of it
and keep on dreaming. who knows
tomorrow would be better than today.

can this be classified as a protest against sadness?

I enjoyed this wonderful poem describing life so well & on a positive note. She covered the whole gambit of life within her poem.

Spiritsong

I especially enjoy the poem Life by Charlotte Bronte because she begins with those wonderful lines ‘LIFE, believe, is not a dream /So dark as sages say; ’. Charlotte insists we believe in life and boldly denies that the sages are correct in believing that life is darker than it is. The optimism of her weather metaphor about life is beautifully written. It is true that if we can survive a storm or trials in earlier years, often if we continue to work hard eventually, there is a better tomorrow.
The sunny hours of life are a joy. Death does step in causing sorrow casting hope down at times. But hopes elastic renewal, buoyant, unconquered with golden wings strong enough to carry us, is superb imagery in this context.
A mistake has occurred in the layout of this poem! There is an apparent planned stanza break between the lines ‘Still strong to bear us well.’ and ‘Manfully, fearlessly, ’.
The poem is so well crafted it must be so. This break gives the perfect symmetry of four stanzas of eight, four, eight and four lines. The themes of each stanza then neatly fit into the weather metaphor of life in a day, life’s sunny hours, death seeming to win but conquered, and the exquisite encouragement of the courage theme beginning ‘Manfully, fearlessly, /The day of trial bear, ’. Such beauty and wisdom in Charlotte’s conclusion ‘For gloriously, victoriously, /Can courage quell despair! ’.
With four stanzas of four separate themes, is revealed the deftness and clever craftsmanship of Bronte in the now apparent second and fourth stanzas, where the first and third lines of each contain the only paired adverbs in the entire poem. These being ‘Rapidly, merrily, ’ and ‘Gratefully, cheerily, ’ in the second stanza and ‘Manfully, fearlessly, ’ with the strength of ‘For gloriously, victoriously, ’ in the fourth stanza. Coincidence? Definitely not. This brilliant poet knew exactly what she was doing when writing this exceptional verse.

Wonderful poem, this woman new her grammer and how to entertain the public which is the ultimate goal of the poet. However bitter people who will never in a hundred life times do what she did in her short time upon this earth, will continue to criticize her and other great poets for no good reason, other than, she will always be well looked on by history.

Very Victorian - a cheap and cheerful sermonette for the edification of the reader. There's a touch of the Patience Strong here 'Oft a little morning rain/Foretells a pleasant day.' I find it difficult to believe that there is anyone anywhere who needs to be reminded of the import of that metaphor. There is also the reverse philosophy - the Romans and the Japanese were wont to fall on their swords when things went wrong. I cannot remember Antony saying to Cleopatra when their world was collapsing round their ears 'Oft a little etc…'.

Indeed life is for living! Like birth death is part of life! So, why should one fear or be sorrowful about it? Nice bold assertion and solid poem to read on that subject!