315 My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crushed heart fell blind and sick.

XII.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

320 For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child no sire

325 No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,
For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend

To my barred windows, and to bend
330 Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII.

I saw them and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow

335 On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channelled rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-walled distant town,
340 And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,

341. Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its cir

Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;

A small green isle it seemed no more,
345 Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.

350

The fish swam by the castle wall,

And they seemed joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast

355 As then to me he seemed to fly,
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled and would fain

I had not left my recent chain ;
And when I did descend again,
360 The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,

And yet my glance, too much oppressed,
365 Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;

370 At last men came to set me free,

cumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view. BYRON.

I asked not why, and recked not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,

I learned to love despair.

375 And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
380 To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
385 We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill - yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell
My very chains and I grew friends,
290 So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are: even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

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 ;
5 And when thy sons to fetters are consigned -

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.

10

Chillon thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar for 't was 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.

FARE THEE WELL.

[Written in the spring of 1816, just after the separation from Lady Byron.]

FARE thee well! and if forever,
Still forever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

5 Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again:

10

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou wouldst at last discover

"T was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee — Though it smile upon the blow, 15 Even its praises must offend thee, Founded on another's woe:

20

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,

Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:

25 Still thine own its life retaineth

30

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth Is that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widowed bed.

And when thou would solace gather, When our child's first accents flow, 35 Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!" Though his care she must forego?