PARTING. BY CURRER BELL.
There’s no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part
There’s such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one’s heart:
There’s such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs’d
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.
We’ll not let its follies grieve us,
We’ll just take them as they come
And they every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.
When we’ve left each friend and brother,
And we’re parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.
Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We’ll connect with those that love us,
Who we truly love till death!
In the evening, when we’re sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give response tone for tone.
We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.
So there’s no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill!
Title:Parting
Author:Currer Bell
Publication:The Bolton Chronicle
Published in:Bolton
Date:March 22nd 1862
Commentary
This poem by ‘Currer Bell’ (actually the by now deceased Charlotte Brontë) is a call for cheeriness in parting, not dwelling on absence. There is a reference to breaking bonds which evokes the imagery of slavery though this does not appear to be related to abolition. The poem can be read as religious in that it encourages faith in a better future possibly in the afterlife, but there is no direct reference to Christianity. It is certainly true that there was an increase in economic migration during the Cotton Famine and this may have been published partly to sympathise with people suffering from being parted with their loved ones. – SR