And the rings of chestnut hair
Curi'd half down his neck so bare;
But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter-
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!
Even the stern stood chill'd with awe :
Dark the crime, and just the law-
Yet they shudder'd as they saw.

XVII.

The parting prayers are said and over
Of that false son-and daring lover!
His beads and sins are all recounted,
His hours to their last minute mounted-
His mantling cloak before was stripp'd,
His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd:
'Tis done all closely are they shorn-
The vest which till this moment worn-
The scarf which Parisina gave-
Must not adorn him to the grave.
Even that must now be thrown aside,
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied;
But no-that last indignity

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,
In deep disdain were half renew'd,
When headsman's hands prepared to bind

Those eyes which would not brook such blind;
As if they dared not look on death.

46

'No-yours my forfeit blood and breath—

These hands are chain'd-but let me die

At least with an unshackled eye-
Strike: "-and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke-
"Strike "-and flashing fell the stroke-
Roll'd the head-and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix for ever.
He died as erring man should die,

Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the Prior kneeling,

His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling;
His wrathful sire-his paramour—
What were they in such an hour?
No more reproach-no more despair;

No thought but heaven-no word but prayer-
Save the few which from him broke,
When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath;
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended,
And with a hushing sound comprest,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;

But no more thrilling noise rose there
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one-what cleaves the silent air

So madly shrill, so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless wo.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek-and ne'er
In madlier accents rase despair;
And those who heard it, as it past,
In mercy wish'd it were the last.

XIX.

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen :

Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;

At least the knight's who died that day,
But Parisina's fate lies hid

Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,

And won to heaven her dreary road,

By blighted and remorseful years

Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,

For that dark love she dared to feel;

Or if, upon the moment smote,

She died by tortures less remote ;

Like him she saw upon the block,

With heart that shared the headsman's shock,

In quicken'd brokenness that came,

In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame,

None knew-and none can ever know:

But whatsoe'er its end below,

Her life began and closed in wo! 3

XX.

And Azo found another bride,
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who wither'd in the grave;
Or if they were-on his cold eye
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Or noticed with a smother'd sigh.
But never tear his cheek descended,

And never smile his brow unbended,

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought

The intersected lines of thought;
Those furrows which the burning share
Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there;
Scars of the lacerating mind

Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.
He was pass'd all mirth or wo:
Nothing more remain'd below
But sleepless nights and heavy days,
A mind all dead to scorn or praise,

THE

SONNET ON CHILLON.

ETERNAL spirit of the chainless mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd—

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

By Bonnivard! -May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.

I.

My hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,2

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;
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.

II.

There are seven pillars of gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeons 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,
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.

III.

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 pined 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.

IV.

I was the eldest of the three,

And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do and did my bestAnd 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 distrest 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 nought but others' ills,
And then they flow'd like mountain rills,
Unless he could assuage the wo
Which he abhorr'd to view below.

V.

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.

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
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,3
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.

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,
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
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 freeborn 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!

VIII.

But he, the favorite 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 and inspired-
He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd 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,
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 wo
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
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,