I hoped that with the brave and strong

I hoped that with the brave and strong. Anne Brontë* (1820-1849) Anne Brontë died at Scarborough on 28 May 1849, and this was her last poem, written between 7 and 28 January of that year. Although a letter exists from after this date, there is some justification for Charlotte Brontë’s dramatic ‘These lines written, the desk was closed, the pen laid aside – for ever.’ It originally had sixteen 4-line stanzas (Brontë Parsonage Museum, 137; see Chitham, 1979, pp. 163-4, p. 201). It began: A dreadful darkness closes in   On my bewildered mind; O let me suffer and not sin,   Be tortured yet resigned. It was published by ‘Currer Bell’ (Charlotte) in a shortened form of eight stanzas in Wuthering...