"No Coward Soul Is Mine" fits into the genre of religious poetry: verse that attests to, glorifies, debates, or otherwise discusses faith. Brontë's work is part of a longer lineage of poets wrestling with their faith and its role in the world. As this poem exemplifies, this is a difficult idea to render in concrete terms, as it involves forces that, by definition, remain unseen. It is helpful to a reading of Brontë's poem to place it in the context of contemporary Victorian poets.
In "De Profundis," Christina Rossetti laments the distance of the heavens:
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
It is a statement of faith, but also an expression of frustration at her circumstances. She wants to be closer to the divine ("Oh why is heaven built so far, / Oh why is earth set so remote?") and be able to connect to it ("reach the nearest star / that hangs afloat"). This excerpt is marked by passion as the speaker feels that she is not able to experience the closeness to God she desires.
In Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty," the speaker provides a more earthly view of the divine:
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
The speaker's faith is defined by the "dappled" beauty he sees in the world. This ranges from the sky ("For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow") to the skin of a trout ("For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim"). The speaker feels that the evidence of the glory of God is in the subtle details of these spotted things. It is a slightly off-kilter image, but the speaker seems to appreciate this beauty all the more for its seeming randomness.
While Brontë's work takes a more elevated tone than Rossetti's and Hopkins', it works in conversation with theirs. They are all seeking to find a way to encapsulate what faith means and where it can be felt. Rossetti perceives it in the stars, and for Hopkins it is present in the small details of the natural world. For Brontë, it is a feeling that she is linked with the most powerful divine force she can envision.
