The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë/How Edenlike seem palace walls
IX
How Edenlike seem palace walls
When youth and beauty join
To waken up their lighted Halls
With looks and smiles divine!
How free from care the perfumed air
About them seems to play!
How glad and bright appears each sight,
Each sound how soft and gay!
'Tis like the heaven which parting days
In summer's pride imbue
With beams of such impartial blaze,
And yet so tender too.
Oh, memory brings a scene to mind
Beneath whose noble dome
Rank, beauty, wealth, and power combine
To light their lordly home.
Yet parting day, however bright,
It still is parting day—
The herald of approaching night,
The trappings of decay.