As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon's spoil,

And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are bann'd, and barr'd forbidden fare; 10
But this was for my father's faith

I suffer'd chains and courted death:
That father perish'd at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling-place.
We were seven who now are one;
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finish'd as they had begun,

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeon deep and old;
There are seven columns, massy and gray,
Dim with a dull imprison'd ray,
A sunbeam which hath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left:
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp:
And in each pillar there is a ring,

And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,

For in these limbs its teeth remain,

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1 The castle of Chillon covers a huge rock at the eastern end of Lake Geneva (Lake Leman).

With marks that will not wear away,
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
I cannot count them o'er;

For years
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother droop'd and died,
And I lay living by his side.

They chain'd us each to a column stone,
And we were three-yet each alone;
We could not move a single pace,
We could not see each other's face,
But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight:
And thus together yet apart,

Fetter'd in hand, but join'd in heart,
'Twas still some solace in the dearth
Of the pure elements of earth,
To hearken to each other's speech,
And each turn comforter to each,
With some new hope, or legend old,
Or song heroically bold;

But even these at length grew cold.
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon-stone,

A grating sound

not full and free, As they of yore were wont to be: It might be fancy- but to me They never sounded like our own.

I was the eldest of the three;

And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do and did - my best, And each did well in his degree.

The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him with eyes as blue as heaven, For him my soul was sorely moved. And truly might it be distress'd To see such bird in such a nest; For he was beautiful as day

(When day was beautiful to me As to young eagles, being free) – A polar day, which will not see A sunset till its summer's gone,

Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun :

And thus he was as pure and bright, And in his natural spirit gay, With tears for naught but others' ills, And then they flow'd like mountain rills, Unless he could assuage the woe

Which he abhorr'd to view below.

The other was as pure of mind,
But form'd to combat with his kind;
Strong in his frame, and of a mood
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,
And perish'd in the foremost rank
With joy but not in chains to pine:
His spirit wither'd with their clank,
I saw it silently decline

And so perchance in sooth did mine;
But yet I forced it on to cheer
Those relics of a home so dear.
He was a hunter of the hills,

Had follow'd there the deer and wolf;
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fetter'd feet the worst of ills.
Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls:
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters meet and flow;
Thus much the fathom line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,

Which round about the wave enthralls: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made - and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake The dark vault lies wherein we lay, We heard it ripple night and day;

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Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd;
And I have felt the winter's spray
Wash through the bars when winds were high
And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rock'd,
And I have felt it shake, unshock'd,

Because I could have smiled to see

The death that would have set me free.

I said my nearer brother pined,

I said his mighty heart declined,

He loathed and put away his food:
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude,
For we were used to hunters' fare,
And for the like had little care:
The milk drawn from the mountain goat
Was changed for water from the moat;
Our bread was such as captives' tears
Have moisten'd many a thousand years,
Since man first pent his fellow-men
Like brutes within an iron den;
But what were these to us or him?
These wasted not his heart or limb;
My brother's soul was of that mould
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free-breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side.
But why delay the truth? - he died.
I saw, and could not hold his head,

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Nor reach his dying hand

nor dead Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. He died and they unlock'd his chain And scoop'd for him a shallow grave Even from the cold earth of our cave. I begg'd them, as a boon, to lay His corse in dust whereon the day Might shine—it was a foolish thought, But then within my brain it wrought, That even in death his free-born breast In such a dungeon could not rest. I might have spared my idle prayer They coldly laugh'd

and laid him there:

The flat and turfless earth above
The being we so much did love;
His empty chain above it leant,
Such murder's fitting monument !
But he, the favourite and the flower,
Most cherish'd since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyr'd father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd on the stalk away.
O God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing

In any shape, in any mood:

I've seen it rushing forth in blood,

I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoll'n convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:
But these were horrors

Unmix'd with such,

- this was woe

but sure and slow:

He faded, and so calm and meek,

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So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yet so tender,

kind,

And grieved for those he left behind;

With all the while a cheek whose bloom

Was as a mockery of the tomb,

Whose tints as gently sunk away

As a departing rainbow's ray

An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur
A groan o'er his untimely lot!
A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence - lost

AE

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no

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250

It ceased, and then it came again,

The sweetest song ear ever heard; And mine was thankful, till my eyes Ran over with the glad surprise, And they that moment could not see I was the mate of misery; But then by dull degrees came back My senses to their wonted track, I saw the dungeon walls and floor Close slowly round me as before, I saw the glimmer of the sun Creeping as it before had done,

But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;

A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seem'd to say them all for me!

I never saw its like before,

I ne'er shall see its likeness more:

It seem'd, like me, to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate,
And it was come to love me when
None lived to love me so again,
And cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.
I know not if it late were free,

Or broke its cage to perch on mine,
But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird, I could not wish for thine!

Or if it were, in wingèd guise,

A visitant from Paradise;

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I saw them and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell❜d rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view:

A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor;
But in it there were three tall trees,

And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,

And by it there were waters flowing,

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And on it there were young flowers growing,

Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,

And they seem'd joyous, each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly,
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled - and would fain

1 would have

350

I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save.
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count - I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free,

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where; It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.

And thus, when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill - yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:- even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

ODE I

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that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas

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and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30
Of sweet sensations battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors.
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When vice walks forth with her unsoften'd
terrors,

And mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere
death,

When faintness, the last mortal birth of pain,
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning
Of the cold staggering race which death is
winning,

40

Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
Yet so relieving the o'ertortured clay,
To him appears renewal of his breath,
And freedom the mere numbness of his

chain; --

And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring, albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek;
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him and the
dizzy

50 - and At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream. And all is ice and blackness, and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth. II

Chamber swims round and round shadows busy,

There is no hope for nations!

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Of many thousand years

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