Oh, they have robbed me of the hope my spirit held so dear; They will not let me hear that voice my soul delights to hear. They will not let me see that face I so delight to see; And they have taken all thy smiles, And all thy love from me. Well, let them seize on all they can; One treasure still is mine, A heart that loves to think on thee And feels the worth of thine.

I could think of him day and night; and I could feel that he was worthy to be thought of. Nobody knew him as I did; nobody could appreciate him as I did; nobody could love him as I–could. ― Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë.

At this point in the novel Agnes is distraught because Weston is about to leave the parish, and she fears she will never see him again; this compares with the fact that Weightman had left and Anne would never see him on this earth again. Agnes then reveals one of her poems, one of her ‘pillars of witness’ as she refers to them, which is in fact Anne’s poem ‘Oh They Have Robbed Me of the Hope’. The lines that Agnes ends this poem with, within the novel, and her commentary on them are very revealing of Anne’s thoughts in the days, months and years following Weightman’s death.

― In Search of Anne Brontë, by Nick Holland.

MARY BENNET & TOM HAYWARD ❤️