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:
but to me
It might be fancy-

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.

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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 dead

Nor reach his dying hand
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 - this was woe
Unmix'd with such, - but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,

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

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none

What next befell me then and there
I know not well I never knew:
First came the loss of light, and air,
And then of darkness too:
I had no thought, no feeling -
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and gray,
It was not night - it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,

And fixedness, without a place :

There were no stars, no earth,—no time, No check,

crime,

no change, - no good,

But silence, and a stirless breath

Which neither was of life nor death;

A sea of stagnant idleness,

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no

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250

A light broke in upon my brain

It was the carol of a bird;

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;

For Heaven forgive that thought, the while
Which made me both to weep and smile-
I sometimes deem'd that it might be

My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,

And then 'twas mortal

well I knew,

For he would never thus have flown, And left me twice so doubly lone

Lone,

Lone,

as the corse within its shroud;
as a solitary cloud,

A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear,
A frown upon the atmosphere,
That hath no business to appear

When skies are blue and earth is gay.

A kind of change came in my fate, My keepers grew compassionate: I know not what had made them so, They were inured to sights of woe; But so it was my broken chain With links unfasten'd did remain, And it was liberty to stride

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Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape, For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child- no sire

no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had1 made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend

To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

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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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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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
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,

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O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the real;
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your sires have left you, all that time
Bequeaths of free, and history of sublime,
Spring from a different theme! - Ye see and
read,

Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!

80 Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd

By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd,

Gushing from freedom's fountains

the crowd,

when

Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore, in which long yoked they
plough'd

The sand,
grain,
'Twas not for them, their necks were too
much bow'd,

or if there sprung the yellow

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And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:

Yes! the few spirits who, despite of deeds Which they abhor, confound not with the

Although they humbled with the kingly few

The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship; crimes

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even her Were of the softer order born of love, She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead, But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread;

For these restored the cross, that from above Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant

Flew between earth and the unholy crescent, Which, if it waned and dwindled, earth may thank

The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe The name of freedom to her glorious struggles; Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And call'd the "kingdom" of a conquering foe,

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But knows what all - and, most of all, we know

With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV

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