Evening Solace by: Charlotte Brontte

The poem, Evening Solace, dramatizes the conflict between the speakers current vs. past emotions. From Charlotte Bronte, it introduces the speakers emotions and thoughts by reflecting the his or her life and how the person tried to move on with life. Unfortunately, the Evening Solace expresses gloomy emotions such as when it mentions the speaker is dealing with loneliness, “But, there are hours of lonely musing…On evening shade and loneliness.” After describing the solitary moments in a silent evening reflecting about its past it stilled continued in detail the grief and sensations the speakers heart was going through. “And feelings, once as strong as passions, Float softly back- a faded dream; Our own sharp grief’s and wild sensations; The tale of others’ suffering seem, Oh! When the heart is freshly bleeding, How longs it for that time to be, When through the mist of years receding, Its woes but live in reverie!”

However, the poem first begins clearly stating that human heart is so strong and capable of containing so many emotions, but its not always as strong to contain all the pain especially because the speakers feelings keep on coming back from its past which caused him to suffer such as the “evening” he began to remember. The form the poem is written highly shows a rhyme scheme such as ababcdcdefefghgh. The fact that the poet choose to write in the style gave it more feeling and a easier way to understand the speakers thoughts, emotions, and surroundings.

Evening Solace’s rhyme scheme and examples of the speakers current emotions, the poem also contained figurative language. For example, personification when it says, “Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations” and “Feel no untold and strange distress.” Lastly, enumeration is also shown when it lists what the human heart contains such as, “The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures.”

The overall point of Bronte’s poem is to describe a feeling of loneliness through out a person thoughts, feelings and emotions through poetic language. Being that the speaker had been through so much it seem that by the end of the poem the speaker wished death and wants to leave the loneliness of earth hoping to find a better outcome, “To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven, Seeking a life and world to come.”