Anne Brontë

“ Thou that hast felt what cankering care
A loving heart is doomed to bear,
Say, how canst thou regret
That fires unfed must fall away,
Long droughts can dry the softest clay,
And cold will cold beget? ”

“ Its composition belongs, therefore, to the period which intervened between the publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell in 1846, and The Tenant of Wildfield Hall in 1848.
Self-Communion is not one of the juvenile essays, written in a microscopic hand, which were produced in considerable numbers by the Brontë children, and with which every Brontë student is sufficiently familiar. The poem is, on the contrary, a mature effort, and is by no means inferior to much of the work which Anne contributed to the joint volume of 1847. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1937, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”