I.

My hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears.

a vile

5 My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with repose, For they have been a dungeon's spoil,

And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air 10 Are banned, and barred forbidden fare; But this was for my father's faith I suffered chains and courted death; That father perished at the stake For tenets he would not forsake ; 15 And for the same his lineal race In darkness found a dwelling-place; We e were seven who now are one, Six in youth, and one in age, Finished as they had begun,

20

Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field,

Their belief with blood have sealed:
Dying as their father died,

For the God their foes denied ;

25 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, 30 Dim with a dull imprisoned 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,
35 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,
40 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,
45 I lost their long and heavy score

When my last brother drooped and died,
And I lay living by his side.

III.

They chained us each to a column stone,
And we were three yet, each alone;
50 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,

55 Fettered in hand, but joined in heart;
'T was 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

31. One of the impressive sights in the dungoon now, as it was in Byron's day, is the beams of the setting sun streaming through the narrow loopholes into the gloomy recesses.

60 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,
65 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 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, 90 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

105

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;
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