"Long Neglect Has Worn Away" is a poem by British author Emily Brontë that deals with decay and the passage of time. Originally written in 1837, the poem was published posthumously in 1902.
Brontë was born in the small village of Thornton, outside the town of Bradford in West Riding, Yorkshire. Brontë showed an early aptitude for schoolwork, quickly becoming proficient in both literature and music. While she is widely known for her gothic novel Wuthering Heights, she was also a prolific poet. During her lifetime, she published a collection of verse with her sisters Anne and Charlotte. They titled the book Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, adopting male pseudonyms to conform to the gender restrictions of the time period. While it did not garner a large readership, the collection did receive positive reviews, with particular regard for Emily Brontë's contributions. Her poems were often about despair, death, and the changes brought about by time. This particular work makes that last theme central.
The poem begins with a description of a face that has been worn by time and neglect. The speaker then notes that at one time this face was beautiful, and traces of this beauty are visible in its current state. The final stanza recounts the line of a letter that this figure wrote in haste, suggesting that the loss of her happiness is rooted in a bygone romantic relationship. The poem is written in three quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme. Every image in the poem occurs roughly every two lines and serves to deepen Brontë's portrait of the ravages of time and abandonment. The poem is about the physical ruin of the protagonist's physical appearance as well as the steep decline of her happiness.
