Poem Analysis: 'Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning' by Emily Brontë

I haven't written a poetry analysis in quite a while, but while pondering a potential topic I realised that I had never shared my favourite poem on my blog. This poem has been with me for at least five years now and I often read it, write it out, or whisper it to myself. It is one of those poems, for me. The poem I mean is 'Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning' by Emily Brontë. Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848) lived a short but fiery life. While her older sister Charlotte is perhaps the one with the greatest acclaim, Emily is the one with a very passionate group of devotees. (Poor Anne will absolutely get her turn next, if I have anything to do with it!) Some things about Emily are well-known, chief being that she loved being outdoors and that she wasn't a super social person. She didn't do well at boarding school, nor as a teacher herself, but she had a great mind. She was incredibly stubborn, which probably didn't make her the easiest person to get along with. For me, this poem has been a way of understanding her mindset more. While 'Often Rebuked' is inspirational in its independence, I also think it is important to see the struggle in it, the desire to find a path forward, to find balance. I think this informs Emily's character as much as her desire for freedom. 

'Often Rebuked' consists of five stanzas, made up of quatrains, four lines, which follow the ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme. One of the things I have always enjoyed about Emily's poetry is that she doesn't really care for metre. She does alternate the number of syllables in her lines which gives a nice flow to the poem without creating a set or rigid structure for the poem. This particularly fits 'Often Rebuked' well, which argues against too tight a constraint or path.

With that general information out of the way, let's have a look at the poem, stanza by stanza. To get a sense for the full poem, do scroll down for a beautiful reading by Frankie MacEachen below. 

Stanza 1

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

A first thing to note is that Emily is writing from the first person here, but that the presence of the I is not intrusive to the reader. The experiences and feelings she is describing are, to some extent, natural to any young person growing up in a tightly-constrained society or family. Even if the restraints aren't tightly wound, there is nonetheless something very recognisable about the young person wanting to follow their own, wild imagination, rather than the path of 'wealth and learning' that might be set out for them. This idea is very much the heart of the poem.

The first two lines give us an indication that our narrator has frequently been 'rebuked', or scolded, for following her own inclinations, 'those first feelings', that are natural to her, rather than the lessons she has been taught. While she is aware of the sensibilities of her society and the ways she should behave, our narrator consistently goes back to those things 'that were born with me'. It speaks to a natural sensibility and knowledge of one's self, listening to an interior voice rather than the outside voice. (For someone as single-minded and apparently stubborn as Emily, this is hardly a surprise.) However, it also echoes to a more "primitive" sensibility, to a return to nature and the Earth, away from the hustle and bustle of society.

The narrator tells us that rather than chase 'wealth and learning' she would rather enjoy 'idle dreams of things which cannot be'. The poem sets up this confrontation between the everyday, the expected, and the personal and imagined. While our narrator is fully aware that her daydreams are not realistic, she nonetheless prefers these over the 'busy chase' of "normal" society. Considering how busy life has become in the 21st-century, this sentiment only rings more true for those who do enjoy sinking away into their own imagination. The colon at the end of the fourth line is also important, it suggests a set-up to something, that something relevant is coming next.

Stanza 2

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

In my opinion, this is the most complex stanza of the poem, and yet also almost functions like its mission statement. The first line could almost work like one of those manifesting statements. Our narrator determines that today something will change, that 'the shadowy region' will not be visited. What, exactly, this shadowy region is, is not (yet) made clear. I have seen many interpretations that argue this region is society itself. I think it is a little more complex, or perhaps a combination of things. What we do know is that it is an 'unsustaining vastness' which 'waxes drear'. The word 'unsustaining' is key. This region, these shadows, are so large that they cannot sustain or support themselves. (Sustaining here also echoes 'sustenance' for me, the idea of nourishment and food, but for the mind rather than the body.) This shadowy region is a dreary place, then which cannot sustain or comfort a human being, and yet our poet is clearly consistently drawn there, or she wouldn't have to state that 'To-day' she will not seek it out. 'Seek it out' further more implies an active choice. This shadowy region is not somewhere she is forced to be.

The first stanza spoke of 'idle dreams', but now the poet is confronted with 'visions rising, legion after legion'. Are these the same dreams, now appearing before her as a vision? Is it the same imagination, which seemed so natural and comforting in the first stanza, which here shows its dark side? The use of 'legion' implies something dominating, military, or at least confrontational. These visions bring forth 'the unreal world' and bring it 'too strangely near'. Is the poet warning us that while sinking into idle dreams' and 'first feelings' can be comforting, it is also dangerous? She seems to suggest that by idling in her own imagination too much, ideas and visions come up which create a world around her she does not recognise, which does not exist. Yet they come in such number that this unreal world comes too close to the poet. The use of 'strangely' is fascinating to me because it seems to imply a certain distance or oddness. For me it brings to mind the way that dreams, once again, seem utterly real when you're in the, until you notice the one little 'unreal' thing. And then the dream is strangely near and yet utterly other as well. 

I think this is the balance Brontë is trying to strike here, in these first two stanzas. She sets up herself as someone who has always returned to her own ideas and feelings, despite being told not to. She finds a comfort there, seemingly, which polite society and learning could not, yet the second stanza flips this into a darker, 'shadowy region'. Her dreams of 'things which cannot be' lead to 'the unreal world' in which she may risk losing herself. She cannot sustain herself with this imaginary world, and so she needs to look for something more concrete, more real. Yet this 'shadowy region', this 'unnatural world', is still also the world of society, of chasing 'wealth and learning'. Both of these, the life of society and the life purely of the mind, are rejected here. So where else can she go? This is where the rest of the poem comes in.

Stanza 3

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

The first two words are crucial. This metaphor of moving forward, impressed by the 'I'll walk', suggests that our poet is on their way towards something, that exploring and finding something new is key. She chooses to leave aside 'old heroic traces' and 'paths of high morality'. This gives us an insight, perhaps, into those visions and idle dreams of the first two stanzas. Raised on literature and scripture, there is no surprise that Emily Brontë's mind would be filled with heroes and morality, it is no wonder that her imagination would bring her to an 'unreal world' in which heroes of old existed. While these stories may have laid out a path for her, she here actively rejects them.

She also rejects 'the half-distinguished faces, / the clouded forms of long-past history'. It follows the same idea as the first two lines, summing up the influences that the poet now rejects. The use of 'half-distinguished' always got me. On the one hand it plays into 'distinguished' as in 'I just about managed to see', suggesting that these people from the past are indeed too far away to really make out. On the other hand, there is 'distinguished' meaning someone successful or authoritative. With them being 'half-distinguished', I feel Emily might be poking a little bit of fun at the stern faces constantly rebuking her.

Stanza 4

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountainside.

The repetition of 'I'll walk' ties these two stanzas together. While the first two set up the pros and cons of her imagination, the third and fourth discuss what the poet does and does not want to do in the future. She wants to go 'where my own nature would be leading'. This differs, in my opinion, from the 'first feelings' from the first stanza in the development it suggests. A nature takes some time to grow into, to get to know. She is referring to her internal 'guide' who will be 'leading' her, rather than the heroic, moral, half-distinguished 'forms' from the third stanza. These two lines not only express a strong sense of independence, but also a certain stubbornness which comes through in the use of 'vex'. You would usually use 'vex' in reference to trivial things, yet here Emily is speaking of the path she will choose for her life. Hardly trivial. I think the same humour comes through here as mentioned above. It is a wry humour, which suggests there could be no other guide for her anyway. I believe the two colons, at the end of the first line and the end of the second line, are meant to enclose this second line, almost like parentheses.

The next two lines tell us where, in reality, her footsteps will be taking the poet. The repeat of 'where' tells us this now refers to an actual locality and of course it is Emily's beloved moors and glens. These two lines are pretty straightforward in that they are clear descriptions. They are nonetheless stunning in how vivid they are. She does not describe this landscape as a luscious oasis. Rather it is 'grey' and 'wild', it is 'windy' and populated by flocks of animals. This is not tamed or inspiring nature, this is nature in its purest form, uncaring for the human within it. The poet is speaking of the real world, in contrast to the 'unreal world', as she knows it, a harsh yet inspiring place, one which can make you feel alive in a way the 'shadowy region' and its 'visions' cannot. Anyone who has felt a cold wind whip across their face while they cross hills or mountains surely knows what she means. 

The previous few stanzas and lines have been very intellectual, in the sense that the poet is addressing society at large, learning, wealth, old heroic texts, morality, etc. These two lines drastically step away from that and reveal what Emily saw as the antidote for that 'unsustaining vastness'. It is, quite simply, the reality and harsh comfort of the natural world. It is real to her in a way none of those 'forms of long-past history' are.

Stanza 5

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

Nature makes our poet ask questions. While its technically a rhetorical question, it nonetheless holds relevance here. The poem so far has been filled with rather dark and obscure imagery, yet it is this mountain, this landscape, this view, which the poet believes can truly tell her something of 'glory' and 'grief'. It is this natural world that can wake 'one human heart to feeling'. This use of 'feeling' here of course connects us back to the first stanza, to 'those first feelings born with me'. While our poet has been born, innately, with a sense of feeling, it is only the earth, the natural environment, that can truly awaken these feelings in a human. 

It is this balance, between glory and grief, between born feelings and awakened feelings, which allows the earth to be the place that can 'centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell'. It is not just that we find ourselves in between those two extremes, it is rather, I believe, that our world contains both of those extremes. Our poet has moved between 'idle dreams' she adores and 'shadowy regions', between unreal and real worlds, between the drudgery of society and the wild mountain air. It is about finding a centre, a path, between these two extremes in life. While this poem absolutely makes a case for following your own instincts, following where your nature leads, it also advocates for that to be a balanced way. One should not fall too far into the 'unreal world' of dreams and visions. One also shouldn't be following in the footsteps of 'half-distinguished faces' to chase 'wealth and learning'. Find a way in between, one that speaks to you but keeps you away from that which becomes dreary or vexes you. And yes, the natural world, the harsh mountainside, the ferns and flocks of animals, they are as a good a reminder as this earth can give you.

Reading by Frankie MacEachen

So those are my thoughts on this poem. I absolutely adore Emily Brontë and I especially adore this poem. My thoughts on it often change and develop, so I would love to hear what you think!