The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Brontë, Charlotte. “On the Death of Anne Brontë.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43710/on-the-death-of-anne-bronte.

"On the Death of Anne Brontë" is a sixteen-line lyric poem of four stanzas in alternate rhyme written by English writer Charlotte Brontë, who is best known for her novel Jane Eyre. She is the sister of two other literary giants, Emily and Anne Brontë. They, along with their brother Branwell, were the only Brontë children to survive into adulthood. After Branwell died from tuberculosis, Emily and Anne also fell ill to the same disease. Less than a year following Emily's passing, Anne also died, leaving Brontë without any of her siblings. Brontë’s poem is an account of the varying emotions she feels following the death of her last surviving sibling, Anne. Compounding Brontë’s grief from the death of her sister is the fact that Brontë had no other siblings left following Anne’s death; in the poem, the speaker focuses on the solitude of grieving alone.

Typically, the reader should be careful not to equate the speaker of a poem with the poet even if the poem is written in first-person. However, Brontë’s poem announces itself as a meditation on the death of her sister. Thus, this guide uses "the speaker" interchangeably with Charlotte Brontë.