THE PRISONER OF CHILLON

SONNET ON CHILLON

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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.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON

I

My hair is gray, but not with years;

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

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IO

As men's have grown from sudden fears:

My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,

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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;

IO

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.

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II

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, 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.

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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.

IV

I was the eldest of the three;

And to uphold and cheer the rest

I ought to do — and did

And each did well in his degree.

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my best,

--

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To him

The youngest, whom my father loved,
Because our mother's brow was given
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,

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Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,

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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.

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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,

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;

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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;

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