These lines were written by Emily Brontë (1818-1848) and published under the male pseudonym (women weren’t supposed to publish anything) Ellis Bell. She is most known for the novella Wuthering Heights (1847).
Themes: neglect; neglected friendship
Long neglect has worn away
Half the sweet enchanting smile;
Time has turned the bloom to gray;
Mold and damp the face defile.
But that lock of silky hair,
Still beneath the picture twined,
Tells what once those features were,
Paints their image on the mind.
Fair the hand that traced that line,
“Dearest, ever deem me true”;
Swiftly flew the fingers fine
When the pen that motto drew.
Through the Eye of a Pegasus 