<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116825" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Prisoner of Chillon</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sonnet on Chillon</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!<br>Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,<br>For there thy habitation is the heart -<br>The heart which love of thee alone can bind;<br>And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd -<br>To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,<br>Their country conquers with their martyrdom,<br>And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.<br>Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,<br>And thy sad floor an altar - for 'twas trod,<br>Until his very steps have left a trace<br>Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,<br>By Bonnivard! - May none those marks efface!<br>For they appeal from tyranny to God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My hair is grey, but not with years,<br> Nor grew it white<br> In a single night,<br>As men's have grown from sudden fears:<br>My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,<br> But rusted with a vile repose,<br>For they have been a dungeon's spoil,<br> And mine has been the fate of those<br>To whom the goodly earth and air<br>Are bann'd, and barr'd-forbidden fare;<br>But this was for my father's faith<br>I suffer'd chains and courted death;<br>That father perish'd at the stake<br>For tenets he would not forsake;<br>And for the same his lineal race<br>In darkness found a dwelling place;<br>We were seven-who now are one,<br> Six in youth, and one in age,<br>Finish'd as they had begun,<br> Proud of Persecution's rage;<br>One in fire, and two in field,<br>Their belief with blood have seal'd,<br>Dying as their father died,<br>For the God their foes denied;-<br>Three were in a dungeon cast,<br>Of whom this wreck is left the last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,<br>In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,<br>There are seven columns, massy and grey,<br>Dim with a dull imprison'd ray,<br>A sunbeam which hath lost its way,<br>And through the crevice and the cleft<br>Of the thick wall is fallen and left;<br>Creeping o'er the floor so damp,<br>Like a marsh's meteor lamp:<br>And in each pillar there is a ring,<br> And in each ring there is a chain;<br>That iron is a cankering thing,<br> For in these limbs its teeth remain,<br>With marks that will not wear away,<br>Till I have done with this new day,<br>Which now is painful to these eyes,<br>Which have not seen the sun so rise<br>For years-I cannot count them o'er,<br>I lost their long and heavy score<br>When my last brother droop'd and died,<br>And I lay living by his side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They chain'd us each to a column stone,<br>And we were three-yet, each alone;<br>We could not move a single pace,<br>We could not see each other's face,<br>But with that pale and livid light<br>That made us strangers in our sight:<br>And thus together-yet apart,<br>Fetter'd in hand, but join'd in heart,<br>'Twas still some solace in the dearth<br>Of the pure elements of earth,<br>To hearken to each other's speech,<br>And each turn comforter to each<br>With some new hope, or legend old,<br>Or song heroically bold;<br>But even these at length grew cold.<br>Our voices took a dreary tone,<br>An echo of the dungeon stone,<br> A grating sound, not full and free,<br> As they of yore were wont to be:<br> It might be fancy-but to me<br>They never sounded like our own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was the eldest of the three<br> And to uphold and cheer the rest<br> I ought to do-and did my best-<br>And each did well in his degree.<br> The youngest, whom my father loved,<br>Because our mother's brow was given<br>To him, with eyes as blue as heaven-<br>For him my soul was sorely moved:<br>And truly might it be distress'd<br>To see such bird in such a nest;<br>For he was beautiful as day-<br> (When day was beautiful to me<br> As to young eagles, being free)-<br> A polar day, which will not see<br>A sunset till its summer's gone,<br> Its sleepless summer of long light,<br>The snow-clad offspring of the sun:<br>And thus he was as pure and bright,<br>And in his natural spirit gay,<br>With tears for nought but others' ills,<br>And then they flow'd like mountain rills,<br>Unless he could assuage the woe<br>Which he abhorr'd to view below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> V</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The other was as pure of mind,<br>But form'd to combat with his kind;<br>Strong in his frame, and of a mood<br>Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,<br>And perish'd in the foremost rank<br> With joy:-but not in chains to pine:<br>His spirit wither'd with their clank,<br> I saw it silently decline-<br> And so perchance in sooth did mine:<br>But yet I forced it on to cheer<br>Those relics of a home so dear.<br>He was a hunter of the hills,<br> Had followed there the deer and wolf;<br> To him this dungeon was a gulf,<br>And fetter'd feet the worst of ills.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls:<br>A thousand feet in depth below<br>Its massy waters meet and flow;<br>Thus much the fathom-line was sent<br>From Chillon's snow-white battlement,<br> Which round about the wave inthralls:<br>A double dungeon wall and wave<br>Have made-and like a living grave<br>Below the surface of the lake<br>The dark vault lies wherein we lay:<br>We heard it ripple night and day;<br> Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd;<br>And I have felt the winter's spray<br>Wash through the bars when winds were high<br>And wanton in the happy sky;<br> And then the very rock hath rock'd,<br> And I have felt it shake, unshock'd,<br>Because I could have smiled to see<br>The death that would have set me free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I said my nearer brother pined,<br>I said his mighty heart declined,<br>He loathed and put away his food;<br>It was not that 'twas coarse and rude,<br>For we were used to hunter's fare,<br>And for the like had little care:<br>The milk drawn from the mountain goat<br>Was changed for water from the moat,<br>Our bread was such as captives' tears<br>Have moisten'd many a thousand years,<br>Since man first pent his fellow men<br>Like brutes within an iron den;<br>But what were these to us or him?<br>These wasted not his heart or limb;<br>My brother's soul was of that mould<br>Which in a palace had grown cold,<br>Had his free breathing been denied<br>The range of the steep mountain's side;<br>But why delay the truth?-he died.<br>I saw, and could not hold his head,<br>Nor reach his dying hand-nor dead,-<br>Though hard I strove, but strove in vain,<br>To rend and gnash my bonds in twain.<br>He died-and they unlock'd his chain,<br>And scoop'd for him a shallow grave<br>Even from the cold earth of our cave.<br>I begg'd them, as a boon, to lay<br>His corse in dust whereon the day<br>Might shine-it was a foolish thought,<br>But then within my brain it wrought,<br>That even in death his freeborn breast<br>In such a dungeon could not rest.<br>I might have spared my idle prayer-<br>They coldly laugh'd-and laid him there:<br>The flat and turfless earth above<br>The being we so much did love;<br>His empty chain above it leant,<br>Such Murder's fitting monument!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he, the favourite and the flower,<br>Most cherish'd since his natal hour,<br>His mother's image in fair face<br>The infant love of all his race<br>His martyr'd father's dearest thought,<br>My latest care, for whom I sought<br>To hoard my life, that his might be<br>Less wretched now, and one day free;<br>He, too, who yet had held untired<br>A spirit natural or inspired-<br>He, too, was struck, and day by day<br>Was wither'd on the stalk away.<br>Oh, God! it is a fearful thing<br>To see the human soul take wing<br>In any shape, in any mood:<br>I've seen it rushing forth in blood,<br>I've seen it on the breaking ocean<br>Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,<br>I've seen the sick and ghastly bed<br>Of Sin delirious with its dread:<br>But these were horrors-this was woe<br>Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow:<br>He faded, and so calm and meek,<br>So softly worn, so sweetly weak,<br>So tearless, yet so tender-kind,<br>And grieved for those he left behind;<br>With all the while a cheek whose bloom<br>Was as a mockery of the tomb<br>Whose tints as gently sunk away<br>As a departing rainbow's ray;<br>An eye of most transparent light,<br>That almost made the dungeon bright;<br>And not a word of murmur-not<br>A groan o'er his untimely lot,-<br>A little talk of better days,<br>A little hope my own to raise,<br>For I was sunk in silence-lost<br>In this last loss, of all the most;<br>And then the sighs he would suppress<br>Of fainting Nature's feebleness,<br>More slowly drawn, grew less and less:<br>I listen'd, but I could not hear;<br>I call'd, for I was wild with fear;<br>I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread<br>Would not be thus admonishèd;<br>I call'd, and thought I heard a sound-<br>I burst my chain with one strong bound,<br>And rushed to him:-I found him not,<br>I only stirred in this black spot,<br>I only lived, I only drew<br>The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;<br>The last, the sole, the dearest link<br>Between me and the eternal brink,<br>Which bound me to my failing race<br>Was broken in this fatal place.<br>One on the earth, and one beneath-<br>My brothers-both had ceased to breathe:<br>I took that hand which lay so still,<br>Alas! my own was full as chill;<br>I had not strength to stir, or strive,<br>But felt that I was still alive-<br>A frantic feeling, when we know<br>That what we love shall ne'er be so.<br> I know not why<br> I could not die,<br>I had no earthly hope-but faith,<br>And that forbade a selfish death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What next befell me then and there<br> I know not well-I never knew-<br>First came the loss of light, and air,<br> And then of darkness too:<br>I had no thought, no feeling-none-<br>Among the stones I stood a stone,<br>And was, scarce conscious what I wist,<br>As shrubless crags within the mist;<br>For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;<br>It was not night-it was not day;<br>It was not even the dungeon-light,<br>So hateful to my heavy sight,<br>But vacancy absorbing space,<br>And fixedness-without a place;<br>There were no stars, no earth, no time,<br>No check, no change, no good, no crime<br>But silence, and a stirless breath<br>Which neither was of life nor death;<br>A sea of stagnant idleness,<br>Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> X</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A light broke in upon my brain,-<br> It was the carol of a bird;<br>It ceased, and then it came again,<br> The sweetest song ear ever heard,<br>And mine was thankful till my eyes<br>Ran over with the glad surprise,<br>And they that moment could not see<br>I was the mate of misery;<br>But then by dull degrees came back<br>My senses to their wonted track;<br>I saw the dungeon walls and floor<br>Close slowly round me as before,<br>I saw the glimmer of the sun<br>Creeping as it before had done,<br>But through the crevice where it came<br>That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,<br>And tamer than upon the tree;<br>A lovely bird, with azure wings,<br>And song that said a thousand things,<br> And seemed to say them all for me!<br>I never saw its like before,<br>I ne'er shall see its likeness more:<br>It seem'd like me to want a mate,<br>But was not half so desolate,<br>And it was come to love me when<br>None lived to love me so again,<br>And cheering from my dungeon's brink,<br>Had brought me back to feel and think.<br>I know not if it late were free,<br> <br>Or broke its cage to perch on mine,<br>But knowing well captivity,<br> Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine!<br>Or if it were, in wingèd guise,<br>A visitant from Paradise;<br>For-Heaven forgive that thought! the while<br>Which made me both to weep and smile-<br>I sometimes deem'd that it might be<br>My brother's soul come down to me;<br>But then at last away it flew,<br>And then 'twas mortal well I knew,<br>For he would never thus have flown-<br>And left me twice so doubly lone,-<br>Lone as the corse within its shroud,<br>Lone as a solitary cloud,<br> A single cloud on a sunny day,<br>While all the rest of heaven is clear,<br>A frown upon the atmosphere,<br>That hath no business to appear<br> When skies are blue, and earth is gay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A kind of change came in my fate,<br>My keepers grew compassionate;<br>I know not what had made them so,<br>They were inured to sights of woe,<br>But so it was:-my broken chain<br>With links unfasten'd did remain,<br>And it was liberty to stride<br>Along my cell from side to side,<br>And up and down, and then athwart,<br>And tread it over every part;<br>And round the pillars one by one,<br>Returning where my walk begun,<br>Avoiding only, as I trod,<br>My brothers' graves without a sod;<br>For if I thought with heedless tread<br>My step profaned their lowly bed,<br>My breath came gaspingly and thick,<br>And my crush'd heart felt blind and sick.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I made a footing in the wall,<br> It was not therefrom to escape,<br>For I had buried one and all,<br> Who loved me in a human shape;<br>And the whole earth would henceforth be<br>A wider prison unto me:<br>No child, no sire, no kin had I,<br>No partner in my misery;<br>I thought of this, and I was glad,<br>For thought of them had made me mad;<br>But I was curious to ascend<br>To my barr'd windows, and to bend<br>Once more, upon the mountains high,<br>The quiet of a loving eye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I saw them-and they were the same,<br>They were not changed like me in frame;<br>I saw their thousand years of snow<br>On high-their wide long lake below,<br>And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;<br>I heard the torrents leap and gush<br>O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;<br>I saw the white-wall'd distant town,<br>And whiter sails go skimming down;<br>And then there was a little isle,<br>Which in my very face did smile,<br> The only one in view;<br>A small green isle, it seem'd no more,<br>Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,<br>But in it there were three tall trees,<br>And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,<br>And by it there were waters flowing,<br>And on it there were young flowers growing,<br> Of gentle breath and hue.<br>The fish swam by the castle wall,<br>And they seem'd joyous each and all;<br>The eagle rode the rising blast,<br>Methought he never flew so fast<br>As then to me he seem'd to fly;<br>And then new tears came in my eye,<br>And I felt troubled-and would fain<br>I had not left my recent chain;<br>And when I did descend again,<br>The darkness of my dim abode<br>Fell on me as a heavy load;<br>It was as is a new-dug grave,<br>Closing o'er one we sought to save,-<br>And yet my glance, too much opprest,<br>Had almost need of such a rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It might be months, or years, or days-<br> I kept no count, I took no note-<br>I had no hope my eyes to raise,<br> And clear them of their dreary mote;<br>At last men came to set me free;<br> I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where;<br>It was at length the same to me,<br>Fetter'd or fetterless to be,<br> I learn'd to love despair.<br>And thus when they appear'd at last,<br>And all my bonds aside were cast,<br>These heavy walls to me had grown<br>A hermitage-and all my own!<br>And half I felt as they were come<br>To tear me from a second home:<br>With spiders I had friendship made<br>And watch'd them in their sullen trade,<br>Had seen the mice by moonlight play,<br>And why should I feel less than they?<br>We were all inmates of one place,<br>And I, the monarch of each race,<br>Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!<br>In quiet we had learn'd to dwell;<br>My very chains and I grew friends,<br>So much a long communion tends<br>To make us what we are:-even I<br>Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116825" data-title="The Prisoner of Chillon de Byron" data-description="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..."></div> </div> </div>

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