SONNET ON CHILLON. ETERNAL spirit of the chainless mind! The heart which love of thee alone can bind; 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, 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, (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 But this was for my father's faith I suffer'd chains and courted death; 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, 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 mold, There are seven columns, massy and gray, A sunbeam which hath lost its way, For in these limbs its teeth remain, |