I am the only being whose doom

When in an earlier post I described Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" as my favourite poem, I misspoke slightly. There are indeed several works that compete for that place in my head. The following poem by Emily Bronte is, indeed, as dear to me as "To His Coy Mistress" or for that matter any other poem. It is fairly well-known, but not nearly as much as it should be. The last stanza is one of the most moving set of lines in all of English literature.

I am the only being whose doom

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never caused a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born.

In secret pleasure, secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years,
As lone as on my natal day.

There have been times I cannot hide,
There have been times when this was drear,
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here.

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care;
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were.

First melted off the hope of youth,
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew.

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow, servile, insincere -
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there.

- Emily Bronte (1818-1848)

NB: I should add, as a postscript, that the sentiments espoused in the postscript, except for those in the last stanza, are not such that I have been unfortunate to empathize with.