60 With some new hope or legend old, Or song heroically bold;

65

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,

70 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 75 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; For he was beautiful as day

80

(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, 85 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 flowed like mountain rills,

20 Unless he could assuage the woe 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

95 Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,
And perished in the foremost rank

100

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:
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;
105 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;

110 Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,
Which round about the wave inthrals:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made and like a living grave.
115 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 knocked
And I have felt the winter's spray

120 Wash through the bars when winds were high

107. Lake Leman is another name for Lake Geneva.

And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake, unshocked, Because I could have smiled to see

125 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 't was coarse and rude, 130 For we were used to hunter's 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 captive's tears 135 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; 140 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. 145 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 unlocked his chain, 150 And scooped for him a shallow grave Even from the cold earth of our cave. I begged them, as a boon, to lay

His corse in dust whereon the day

Might shine it was a foolish thought, 155 But then within my brain it wrought, That even in death his freeborn breast In such a dungeon could not rest.

I might have spared my idle prayer

They coldly laughed and laid him there: 160 The flat and turfless earth above

The being we so much did love;
His empty chain above it leant,
Such murder's fitting monument!

VIII.

But he, the favorite and the flower,
165 Most cherished since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,

His martyred father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
170 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
175 Was withered on the stalk away.
Oh, 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,
180 I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:

But these were horrors - this was woe

185 Unmixed 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;
190 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,
195 That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur not
A groan o'er his untimely lot, —
A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise,
200 For I was sunk in silence lost

205

In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,

More slowly drawn, grew less and less:
I listened, but I could not hear

I called, for I was wild with fear;

I knew 't was hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

I called, and thought I heard a sound210 I burst my chain with one strong bound, And rushed to him: I found him not,

I only stirred in this black spot,

I only lived - I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 215 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.