Emily Brontë has been called one of the great English lyric poets and has found admirers among other poets. Emily Dickinson thought so highly of Emily Brontë’s poetry that she chose “No coward soul” to be read at her funeral.

No coward soul is mine

No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere

I see Heaven‘s glories shine

And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

 

O God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hast rest,

As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

 

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

 

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity,

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality.

 

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

 

Though earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And Thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

 

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being and Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed.