No Coward's Soul Is Mine

"No Coward's Soul Is Mine", by Emily Bronte

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life, that in me has rest,
As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!.

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Since Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

This is such a moving poem to me, the way she speaks about God as if to a lover, with passion in her words. To see the final work of poetry, the final words of a life come from a human being is a very moving thing. The words they chose to say as they lay dying, the final words to sum up a lifetime of learning and living. As Emily Bronte lay on her bed, dying quickly from tuberculosis, her last words, her one thing she chose to say before parting from this earth was that of undying faith and total peace. When the doctors informed her that she was sick, she chose not to be hospitalized, or even medicated. Why? Why would she give up what seems to us like her whole life ahead of her when she could fight back death for some time longer? Was it because she was unhappy with the life that she had been given? Was it because of her state of mind? Was she at peace enough to leave this world without regrets or remorse? Or was it that her heart longed to be in unity with God, to walk with Him once more like she had in the garden ages past. Read the poem again, slowly and sincerely. Read as though they were the dying words of your sons or daughters.
This is a brief window into her heart, her heart overflowing with genuine love and faith for God. At that place on her death bed, lying before God and man, preparing to cross over the threshold into the unknown, she entertained no doubt in her mind. Her father would catch her, he would not let her fall. I don't know about any of you, but that pure faith and belief that she held in her heart is the kind of faith I want to have. A faith that inspires people, a faith that grows people, a faith that is faith where knowledge cannot go. A faith like that will change the world.