Lyric Poem · Hope

Hope

by Emily Brontë

Reading room

1Hope was but a timid friend;

2She sat without the grated den,

3Watching how my fate would tend,

4Even as selfish-hearted men.

5She was cruel in her fear;

6Through the bars, one dreary day,

7I looked out to see her there,

8And she turned her face away!

9Like a false guard, false watch keeping,

10Still, in strife, she whispered peace;

11She would sing while I was weeping;

12If I listened, she would cease.

13False she was, and unrelenting;

14When my last joys strewed the ground,

15Even Sorrow saw, repenting,

16Those sad relics scattered round;

17Hope, whose whisper would have given

18Balm to all my frenzied pain,

19Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,

20Went, and ne'er returned again!

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“Hope” by Emily Brontë — quilloak.com/poems/hope-bronte

Quick facts

Poem: Hope
Poet: Emily Brontë
Length: 20 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Hope, Sad, Friendship

Craft notes

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Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 20 lines · 5 quatrains
Line length: Mostly 7-syllable lines.

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Text, source & rights

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Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: Emily Brontë1818–1848
Source record: PoetryDBHope by emily-bronte, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 eb3139cd24189df9…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Hope Sad Friendship

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