Decay
As suggested by its title, "Long Neglect Has Worn Away" is centrally concerned with the effects of time and decay. The speaker uses images of wear to show the impact that time and inattention have had on an individual. She describes the central figure in the poem as having lost her "enchanting smile" and beautiful face. The vague remnants of this woman's beauty are still visible, but their "bloom" has turned to "gray." Brontë uses these images in order to support her image of joyless aging as erosion, a process that slowly wears away physical beauty and happiness.
Memory
One of the poem's other main themes is memory. In the second stanza, the speaker describes the way in which traces of the central character's former appearance still remain legible in her face. The speaker says that these traces "paint" an image of what she looked like in the past. She then goes on to say that at one time this woman wrote love letters with a "fair" hand. The implication of these references to her former beauty is that amid all this fading, memory holds the suggestion of her former beauty, and life, in place. Like the vestiges of her physical appearance, the remnants of her happiness still linger. However, this only further highlights the tragic nature of this decay, as these remnants make it possible to imagine how things once were for this woman.
Neglect
One of the poem's other themes is neglect. While the text deals with time and aging, there is also a thread of neglect and abandonment. The opening two lines give the impression that a lack of care has taken something out of the central figure's smile. Similarly, the final stanza seems to describe this woman writing a love letter, expressing a desire to always be deemed "true" by her beloved. What the poem highlights in these moments is that this woman has, in one way or another, lost this lover. She has suffered the effects of both natural aging as well as a lack of love.
