Bedtime Brontë: Poetry for Creative Minds

Hello Creators

Coming soon: Build Without Breaking, a new performing arts interview series releasing toward the end of the year.

Follow us on Instagram to follow the launch:
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Let me guide you into a bedtime poetry reading inspired by the renewed buzz around Wuthering Heights and the world that shaped Emily Brontë. 
We talk about her deep love of animals, nature, and home, and why Yorkshire’s wild moors and harsh wind feel stitched into the rhythm of her lines. 

The poems move through darkness, devotion, and doubt: a storm you cannot leave, love and friendship measured by seasons, hope that turns away, moonlight that settles the room, a rose that withers, mist that softens tomorrow, and a final walk that holds grief with quiet honesty.
 
If you’re looking for a sleep podcast for performers and creatives, calming narration, and Emily Brontë poems to help with insomnia and anxious nights, press play and get comfortable. 
Subscribe, share this with a fellow sleepless creative, and leave a review so more listeners can find a gentler way to end the day.

Sweet dreams,

Florence x

Transcript

Why Emily Brontë Tonight

Settle In And Get Cosy

The Night Is Darkening

Love And Friendship Compared

Hope That Leaves You Behind

Midnight Moonlight And Stillness

A Rose Withers From Within

Mist On The Hill Memories

Come Walk With Me In Grief

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, creators, and welcome to Sleepless Creatives, a sleep podcast for performers and creators just like you. I'm your host, Florence, and today I'm going to start off this episode with a special announcement. And some of you may have already seen this shared on our Instagram, but I'm really excited to announce that alongside Sleepless Creatives, I will be launching another brand new podcast. It's called Build Without Breaking, and I won't give too much away yet, but I can tell you that it will be a limited performing arts interview series that we'll be releasing towards the end of the year. So in the meantime, you can follow the Instagram page that I've made. It's at Build Without Breaking Pod. And on to today's text. I realise that we haven't read any poetry for a while, and in light of the new Wuthering Heights film coming out, I wanted to read a collection of poetry by Emily Bronte. Emily had a keen love for animals and nature, and that's something that is reflected in a lot of her poetry and also in Wuthering Heights for those of you that have read it. And what is also clear to me is her love for her home as well. She was born and raised in Yorkshire in the north of England, a place that is known for its wild and rugged beauty just as much as its terrible windy weather. And I actually live in Yorkshire too. I've lived here for the last five years, and the more time I spend here looking at the moors and the old buildings and all of that stuff, I can really understand the pull that it has on her work. So take a moment to get cozy and comfortable and drift off. The night is darkening round me. The wild winds coldly blow, but a tyrant's spell has bound me, and I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending, their bare boughs weighed with snow. The storm is fast descending, and yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, wastes beyond wastes below, but nothing dreer can move me. I will not, cannot go. Love and friendship. Love is like the wild rose briar, friendship like the holly tree. The holly is dark when the rose briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly? The wild rose briar is sweet in the spring, its summer blossoms scent the air. Yet wait till winter comes again, and who will call the wild briar fair? Then scorn the silly rose wreath now, and deck thee with the holly's sheen. That when December blights thy brow, he may still leave thy garland green. Hope was but a timid friend. She sat without my grated den, watching how my fate would tend, even the selfish-hearted men. She was cruel in her fear. Through the bars, one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, and she turned her face away. Like a false guard, false watch keeping, still in strife, she whispered peace. She would sing while I was weeping. If I listened, she would cease. False she was, and unrelenting, when my last joys strewed the ground, even sorrow saw repenting, those sad relics scattered round. Hope, whose whisper would have given balm to all that frenzied pain, stretched her wings and soared to heaven, went and ne'er returned again. Tis moonlight. The solemn hour of midnight breathes sweet thoughts everywhere. But most where trees are sending their breezy boughs on high, or stooping low are lending a shelter from the sky. And there in those wild bowers, a lovely form is laid. Green grass and dew-steeped flowers wave gently round her head. A little budding rose. And shyly did its leaves unclose, hid in their mossy robe, but sweet was the slight and spicy smell it breathed from its heart invisible. The rose is blasted, withered, blighted, its root has felt a worm, and like a heart beloved and slighted, failed, faded, shrunk its form. Bud of beauty, bonny flower, I stole thee from thy natal bower. I was the worm that withered thee. Thy tears of dew all fell for me. Leaf and stalk and rose are gone. Exile earth they died upon. Yes, that last breath of balmy scent, with alien breezes sadly blent. Mild the mist upon the hill. Mild the mist upon the hill, telling not of storms tomorrow. No, the day has wept its fill, spent its store of silent sorrow. Oh, I'm gone back to the days of youth. I am a child once more, and neath my father's sheltering roof, and near the old hall door. I watch this cloudy evening fall after a day of rain, blue mists, sweet mists of summer pole, the horizon's mountain chain. The damp stands on the long green grass as thick as morning's tears, and dreamy scents of fragrance pass that breathe of other years. Come walk with me. Come walk with me. There's only thee to bless my spirit now. We used to love on winter's nights, to wander through the snow. Can we not woo back old delights? The clouds rush dark and wild, they fleck with shade our mountain heights, the same as long ago, and on the horizon rest at last, in looming masses piled. While moonbeams flash and fly so fast, we scarce can say they smiled. Come walk with me, come walk with me. We were not once so few, but death has stolen our company as sunshine steals the dew. He took them one by one, and we are left the only two. So closer would my feelings twine, because they have no stay but thine. Nay, call me not, it may not be, his human love so true. Can friendship's flower droop on for years, and then revive anew? No, though the soil be wet with tears, how fair so'er it grew, the vital sap once perished will never flow again, and surer than that dwelling dread, the narrow dungeon of the dead, time parts the hearts of men.