Anne Bronte’s Prayer

One of my personal highlights of 2025, other than my marriage of course which was the highlight of my life, was being invited to address the Brussels Brontë Group in the city that two of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë, had known so well. My talk addressed the sisters’ differing attitudes towards faith and religion, and its influence upon their writing. There is no doubt in my mind that Anne Brontë was the most devout of the three writing Brontës, and today we are going to look at one of her most religious poems.

I myself am a believer, and spent this morning serving teas and coffees to the congregation whilst wearing a Brontë apron. It’s quite fitting, I feel, that we look at one of Anne’s religious works on a Sunday, but I hope that you enjoy Anne Brontë’s poetic skills even if you have a different faith or no faith.

Anne’s verse covers a diverse range of subjects. We have poems of love and loss, especially after the all too early death of William Weightman, such as “A Reminiscence”; we have nature poems such as “Lines Composed In A Wood On A Windy Day”; poems of longing for family and for Haworth such as “Home”. We also have poems of faith, and it is perhaps these which meant most to Anne. Some of this verse has been converted into hymns, a tribute to the natural melodic qualities of much of Anne’s poetry – poems such as “The Three Guides” which has found itself part of the Moravian hymn book. This is particularly fitting as it was a Moravian priest, James La Trobe who tended Anne and saved her life when she was dangerously ill as a pupil at Roe Head School.

We turn now to Anne Brontë’s poem “My God! O Let Me Call Thee Thine!” also sometimes called simply “A Prayer”:

‘My God! O let me call Thee mine!
Weak wretched sinner though I be,
My trembling soul would fain be Thine,
My feeble faith still clings to Thee,
My feeble faith still clings to Thee.
Not only for the past I grieve,
The future fills me with dismay;
Unless Thou hasten to relieve,
I know my heart will fall away,
I know my heart will fall away.
I cannot say my faith is strong,
I dare not hope my love is great;
But strength and love to Thee belong,
O, do not leave me desolate!
O, do not leave me desolate!
I know I owe my all to Thee,
O, take this heart I cannot give.
Do Thou my Strength my Saviour be;
And make me to Thy glory live!
And make me to Thy glory live!’

In twenty lines across five stanzas we find a declaration of faith by Anne Brontë. It is a personal faith; to Anne, God is not something to be read about in the Bible and then set aside, it is something you can call upon, something that will listen and help. It is this faith that made Anne so strong as she faced her final hours in Scarborough, and that proved in the end to be an impenetrable shield against despair.

I hope this post finds you all far from despair, and if not then I hope you find help and solace of some kind to help you through it. January, surely the longest month in the calendar, has finally slung its hook, and February with the promise of spring has arrived. A new Brontë blog post will also arrive, next Sunday, so I hope you can join me here for that.