Poem of the Week: Spellbound by Emily Brontë
But a tyrant spell has bound me
Spellbound
Emily Brontë
The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
This poem originally appeared in Poems (1902).
Captured by terrible magic.
When I think about this poem, I think about the Eight of Swords tarot card. For those not familiar with the card, it features a bound and blindfolded woman surrounded by eight swords, trapped in place. But, if the woman were to remove her blindfold, she would discover that she is not kept by the swords or tethered. The binds could simply fall away. Much like this poem, this speaker is trapped—perhaps by something sinister and enthralling—and experiences a the growing gray cast of possession. The work is overwhelmed with a visceral, overwhelming sense of dread and that’s where the speaker keeps us: frozen, in the thralls of nature’s darkening fancies.