“Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:”

— Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

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Emily Brontë 151

English novelist and poet 1818–1848

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Context: How near another's heart we oft may stand,
Yet all unknowing what we fain would know
Its heights of joy, its depths of bitter woe,
As, wrecked upon some desert island's strand,
They watch our white sails near and nearer grow;
Then we, who for their rescue death would dare,
Unheeding pass, and leave them to despair.