Response to Emily Brontë's "The Night-Wind"

 The Night-Wind by Emily Brontë

In summer's mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlor window
And rosetrees wet with dew.

I sat in silent musing,
The soft wind waved my hair:
It told me Heaven was glorious,
And sleeping Earth was fair.

I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me,
But still it whispered lowly,
"How dark the woods will be!

"The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem."

I said, "Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind,
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.

"Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow."

The wanderer would not leave me;
Its kiss grew warmer still--
"O come," it sighed so sweetly,
"I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.

"Have we not been from childhood friends?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou hast loved the night
Whose silence wakes my song.

"And when thy heart is laid at rest
Beneath the church-yard stone
I shall have time enough to mourn
And thou to be alone."

The Night Window by Runda Alamour

My fingers pry
the stubborn window open, and
I breathe in the charcoal sky,
I worship the whispering land.

Thoughts, sharp as razor blades,
rip through my chest,
and I wonder if you know the shades
between life and death?

Was it you, calling to
me? Have your tears
become the morning dew?
Have your lips affirmed my fears?

Tell me!
Has your soul suffered, as
I have? Can I be free,
has this world no mercy?

Oh whistling wind,
haunting creature of the night,
I am pinned
and pressed beneath your might. 

No!
It is not wind, nor Earth tonight,
It is you, my ghostly love, so
sweet and terrible within my sight.

Oh Catherine! Oh love!
Come in! Come in!
Darling, sweet dove,
ease the tattered heart within.

The shutters gasped,
I whispered her name,
the candle crashed,
and I was engulfed in blame.

~~
     After reading The Night-Wind I thought back to Emily Bronte's book "Wuthering Heights." There is a scene in the beginning where Heathcliff is begging the ghost of Catherine to come through the window, but she pays no attention. This poem is inspired by both the poem and the novel.