Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation; where, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? 1098
Who loves, raves 'tis youth's frenzy — but the cure
Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON
My hair is gray, but not from years;
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
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,
Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal'd
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.
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,
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
For years
- I cannot count them o'er;
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.
Which he abhorr'd to view below.
And then they flow'd like mountain rills, Unless he could assuage the woe
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;
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,
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 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,
I only stirr'd in this black spot,
I only lived - I only drew
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on the earth, and one beneath —
My brothers both had ceased to breath:
I took that hand which lay so still;
Alas, my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that I was still alive -
A frantic feeling, when we know
That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why
I had no earthly hope but faith, And that forbade a selfish death.
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,
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