So, what is our narrator being tempted by?
Does she desire the seduction?
What, connotatively, has she to say about the wooing voice?
What is the nature of the Night-Wind?
| In summer's mellow midnight | summer = warm, the season of comfort (particularly in England, which is not particularly hot in summer and is cool and damp the other three seasons); mellow = gentle, slow-moving, harmonious, peaceful this midnight is quite delightful! |
| A cloudless moon shone through | cloudless = unobstructed or unobscured; the path to the unconsious, the depths, and the night is direct & clear |
| Our open parlour window | open window = the viewer is receptive; the mind is ready to receive the messages of the night |
| And rosetrees wet with dew. | rose = fragrant, beautiful; wet with dew = dew is magic, associated with fairies and sprites, a gift of the night |
| I sat in silent musing, | The narrator is awake, thinking (though the thoughts need not be those of the night, not until ...) |
| The soft wind waved my hair: | Soft wind = gentle; the touch on the hair is gentle; Wind (night wind!) should here be associated with Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine who came to Ariadne, who was alone after being abandoned by Theseus, in the guise of the Wind. |
| It told me Heaven was glorious. | Is this Heaven the life beyond, or is this Heaven the moment of satisfaction of earthly desires? |
| And sleeping Earth was fair. | That the Earth is good, benevolent, and at its best when asleep. |
| I needed not its breathing To bring such thoughts to me, |
The narrator is fully receptive to its message; she is waiting to be tempted, waiting to be seduced, in fact dreaming of the seduction. |
| But still it whispered lowly, "How dark the woods will be! |
The voice of the Wind is a whisper, a seductive whisper; it is an invitation to temptation and darkness; it glories in the woods and the night. |
| "The thick leaves in my murmer |
The sounds of the rustling leaves are night voices, sounding like voices from a dream (the unconscious) or animated beings whose every sound reflects instinct (natural bent or desire, desire untempered by conscious curbs) and spirit (life, awareness, intent). |
| I said, "Go, gentle singer, Thy wooing voice is kind, |
The narrator refers to the seductive Wind as gentle, and kind -- as though she finds its attentions desirable; and yes, she recognizes she is being wooed. |
| But do not think its music Has power to reach my mind. |
Despite the temptation, she turns down the Wind; the voice does not have power over the narrator's conscious mind, or so she asserts. It is music (in contemporary terms, we would say "it appeals to the right brain," the center of creativity and impulse), but cannot control conscious thought (which we would delineate as "left brain, logical action"). |
| "Play with the scented flower, |
She tells the Wind to go and exert its influence on the things of nature -- or young women who behave like things of nature; think of a perfumed young lady seeking attention, and of her soft arm (supple bough). |
| And leave my human feelings In their own course to flow." |
Please, let her thoughts and feelings make their own way; desire exerts quite enough influence without the voice of the Wind amplifying it. |
| The wanderer would not leave me; Its kiss grew warmer still -- |
Temptation increases; the voice of the Wind continues; we feel the narrator's sexual tension. |
| "Oh come," it sighed so sweetly, "I'll win thee 'gainst thy will. |
The Wind reveals itself to be a seducer, willing to act to overcome the narrator's will. "I will win thee despite thy desires" -- or "I will win thee" (bring thy true desires to the fore) "despite those strictures forced by your conscious mind" (meaning societal mores and other confinements that cage the true spirit)? |
| "Have we not been from childhood friends? | The Wind suggests that he has been with her, in the form of her imagination, from the time of her lonely childhood (note that I'm hinting at Bronte autobiography here). |
| Have I not loved thee long? | The Wind asserts that he has been her constant lover. |
| As long as thou hast loved the night Whose silence wakes my song. |
And asserts that the love has been mutual; from the time the narrator was first aware of the beauty of the night and the beauty of silence, they have been together. |
| "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 Wind culminates his seduction by telling the narrator that she is mortal; she will die and lie alone in her grave; he bids her not to reject him now because rejection would leave her alone (and she will have quite enough time to be alone after she is dead) and rejection would leave him in mourning (and he will have quite enough time to mourn after his mortal companion is lost); here the parallel with Ariadne is perhaps strongest, as the mortal and the immortal can love only so long as the mortal can live. The Wind offers comfort; why should he be rejected when the only alternative is loneliness, loneliness like that of the grave? "Accept my love while you can," he seems to be urging. |
If you choose to write on this Bronte piece, you must attempt to deal with the questions I have left open in this analysis: