There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,[6]
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30
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:[7]
And in each pillar there is a ring,[8]
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away, 40
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years--I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother drooped and died,
And I lay living by his side.
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30
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:[7]
And in each pillar there is a ring,[8]
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away, 40
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years--I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother drooped and died,
And I lay living by his side.
Byron
]
STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. [438]
When all around grew drear and dark,[sn]
And reason half withheld her ray--
And Hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair--the cold depart;
When Fortune changed--and Love fled far,[so]
And Hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star[sp]
Which rose and set not to the last. [sq]
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a Seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,[sr]
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray--[ss]
Then purer spread its gentle flame,[st]
And dashed the darkness all away.
Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine,[su]
And teach it what to brave or brook--
There's more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world's defied rebuke.
Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,[sv]
That still unbroke, though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend--the skies might pour,
But there thou wert--and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For Heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind--and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken--thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel--but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found and still are fixed in thee:--
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert--ev'n to me.
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON
I.
My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,[3]
As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,[b]
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are banned,[4] and barred--forbidden fare; 10
But this was for my father's faith
I suffered chains and courted death;
That father perished 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,[5]
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finished as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;[c] 20
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have sealed,
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied;--
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
II.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,[6]
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30
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:[7]
And in each pillar there is a ring,[8]
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away, 40
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years--I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother drooped and died,
And I lay living by his side.
III.
They chained us each to a column stone,
And we were three--yet, each alone;
We could not move a single pace, 50
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,
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart,[d]
'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, 60
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.
IV.
I was the eldest of the three,
And to uphold and cheer the rest 70
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 distressed
To see such bird in such a nest;[9]
For he was beautiful as day--
(When day was beautiful to me 80
As to young eagles, being free)--
A polar day, which will not see[10]
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 nought but others' ills,
And then they flowed like mountain rills,
Unless he could assuage the woe 90
Which he abhorred to view below.
V.
The other was as pure of mind,
But formed to combat with his kind;
Strong in his frame, and of a mood
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,
And perished in the foremost rank
With joy:--but not in chains to pine:
His spirit withered with their clank,
I saw it silently decline--
And so perchance in sooth did mine: 100
But yet I forced it on to cheer
Those relics of a home so dear.
He was a hunter of the hills,
Had followed there the deer and wolf;
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fettered feet the worst of ills.
VI.
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 110
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,[11]
Which round about the wave inthralls:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made--and like a living grave.
Below the surface of the lake[12]
The dark vault lies wherein we lay:
We heard it ripple night and day;
Sounding o'er our heads it knocked;
And I have felt the winter's spray
Wash through the bars when winds were high 120
And wanton in the happy sky;
And then the very rock hath rocked,
And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13]
Because I could have smiled to see
The death that would have set me free.
VII.
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 hunter's fare, 130
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 moistened 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 140
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side;[14]
But why delay the truth?
STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. [438]
When all around grew drear and dark,[sn]
And reason half withheld her ray--
And Hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair--the cold depart;
When Fortune changed--and Love fled far,[so]
And Hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star[sp]
Which rose and set not to the last. [sq]
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a Seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,[sr]
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray--[ss]
Then purer spread its gentle flame,[st]
And dashed the darkness all away.
Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine,[su]
And teach it what to brave or brook--
There's more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world's defied rebuke.
Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,[sv]
That still unbroke, though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend--the skies might pour,
But there thou wert--and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For Heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind--and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken--thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel--but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found and still are fixed in thee:--
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert--ev'n to me.
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON
I.
My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,[3]
As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,[b]
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are banned,[4] and barred--forbidden fare; 10
But this was for my father's faith
I suffered chains and courted death;
That father perished 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,[5]
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finished as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;[c] 20
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have sealed,
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied;--
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
II.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,[6]
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30
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:[7]
And in each pillar there is a ring,[8]
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away, 40
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years--I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother drooped and died,
And I lay living by his side.
III.
They chained us each to a column stone,
And we were three--yet, each alone;
We could not move a single pace, 50
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,
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart,[d]
'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, 60
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.
IV.
I was the eldest of the three,
And to uphold and cheer the rest 70
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 distressed
To see such bird in such a nest;[9]
For he was beautiful as day--
(When day was beautiful to me 80
As to young eagles, being free)--
A polar day, which will not see[10]
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 nought but others' ills,
And then they flowed like mountain rills,
Unless he could assuage the woe 90
Which he abhorred to view below.
V.
The other was as pure of mind,
But formed to combat with his kind;
Strong in his frame, and of a mood
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,
And perished in the foremost rank
With joy:--but not in chains to pine:
His spirit withered with their clank,
I saw it silently decline--
And so perchance in sooth did mine: 100
But yet I forced it on to cheer
Those relics of a home so dear.
He was a hunter of the hills,
Had followed there the deer and wolf;
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fettered feet the worst of ills.
VI.
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 110
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,[11]
Which round about the wave inthralls:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made--and like a living grave.
Below the surface of the lake[12]
The dark vault lies wherein we lay:
We heard it ripple night and day;
Sounding o'er our heads it knocked;
And I have felt the winter's spray
Wash through the bars when winds were high 120
And wanton in the happy sky;
And then the very rock hath rocked,
And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13]
Because I could have smiled to see
The death that would have set me free.
VII.
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 hunter's fare, 130
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 moistened 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 140
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side;[14]
But why delay the truth?
