“Bless it!  My Gracious God!” I cried,
    “Preserve Thy mortal shrine,
  For Thine own sake, be Thou its guide,
    And keep it still divine—­

  “Say, sin shall never blanch that cheek,
    Nor suffering change that brow. 
  Speak, in Thy mercy, Maker, speak,
    And seal it safe from woe.”

* * * * *

  The revellers in the city slept,
    My lady in her woodland bed;
  I watching o’er her slumber wept,
    As one who mourns the dead.

Geraldine therefore is the Outcast Mother.  In “The Two Children” the doom gathers round the child.

  Heavy hangs the raindrop
    From the burdened spray;
  Heavy broods the damp mist
    On uplands far away.

  Heavy looms the dull sky,
    Heavy rolls the sea;
  And heavy throbs the young heart
    Beneath that lonely tree.

  Never has a blue streak
    Cleft the clouds since morn
  Never has his grim fate
    Smiled since he was born.

  Frowning on the infant,
    Shadowing childhood’s joy. 
  Guardian-angel knows not
    That melancholy boy.

* * * * *

  Blossom—­that the west wind
    Has never wooed to blow,
  Scentless are thy petals,
    Thy dew is cold as snow!

  Soul—­where kindred kindness
    No early promise woke,
  Barren is thy beauty,
    As weed upon a rock.

  Wither—­soul and blossom! 
    You both were vainly given: 
  Earth reserves no blessing
    For the unblest of Heaven.

The doomed child of the outcast mother is the doomed man, and, by the doom, himself an outcast.  The other child, the “Child of delight, with sun-bright hair”, has vowed herself to be his guardian angel.  Their drama is obscure; but you make out that it is the doomed child, and not Branwell Bronte, who is “The Wanderer from the Fold”.

  How few, of all the hearts that loved,
    Are grieving for thee now;
  And why should mine to-night be moved
    With such a sense of woe?

  Too often thus, when left alone,
    Where none my thoughts can see,
  Comes back a word, a passing tone
    From thy strange history.

* * * * *

  An anxious gazer from the shore—­
    I marked the whitening wave,
  And wept above thy fate the more
    Because—­I could not save.

  It recks not now, when all is over;
    But yet my heart will be
  A mourner still, though friend and lover
    Have both forgotten thee.

Compare with this that stern elegy in Mr. Shorter’s collection, “Shed no tears o’er that tomb.”  A recent critic has referred this poem of reprobation also to Branwell Bronte—­as if Emily could possibly have written like this of Branwell: 

  Shed no tears o’er that tomb,
    For there are angels weeping;
  Mourn not him whose doom
    Heaven itself is mourning.