1625

1630

1635

1640

1645

Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war,

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

CLXXXII.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free,

And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play; Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; - boundless, endless, and sub-
lime-

The image of Eternity - the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

CLXXXIV.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

1650

1655

1660

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers- they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror- 't was a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane

CLXXXV.

as I do here.

My task is done my song hath ceased - my theme

Has died into an echo; it is fit

The spell should break of this protracted dream.
The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath
lit

My midnight lamp- and what is writ, is writ, —
Would it were worthier! but I am not now

That which I have been and my visions flit

---

Less palpably before me — and the glow 1665 Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.

1670

CLXXXVI.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been
A sound which makes us linger;-yet-fare-
well!

Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain

He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell;
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,
If such there were with you, the moral of his
strain!

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

A FABLE.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE words "a fable” which Byron added to the title of this poem should put one on his guard against taking the poem as an historical narrative, or treating it in its parts as true to the literal facts of Bonnivard's experience. Byron wrote the poem in June, 1816, at a small inn in the little village of Ouchy, near Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva, where he happened to be detained a couple of days by stress of weather. In a notice prefixed to the poem he wrote : "When this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavored to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues." As it was he had been stirred by the tradition of the patriot's confinement in the castle which he had just visited, and with his ardent passion for political liberty which found expression later in Italy and in Greece, he used the incident for an impassioned poetic monologue.

The tourist to-day who visits the castle of Chillon finds abundant historical information respecting the castle and the confinement of Bonnivard. Byron's poem has lifted the place into great distinction. The castle stands on a rock in the lake, not far from Montreux, and is approached by a bridge. In the interior is a range of dungeons. Eight pillars are shown, one of which is half built into the wall. The prisoners, who were sometimes reformers, sometimes prisoners of state, were fettered to the pillars, and the pavement is worn with the footsteps of their brief pace. Francis Bonnivard was born in 1496. He was of gentle birth and inherited a rich priory near Geneva. When the Duke of Savoy attacked the republic of Geneva, Bonnivard joined in the defence, and became thus the enemy of the Duke. Subsequently, when in the service of the republic, he fell into the power of the Duke, who imprisoned him for six years in the castle of Chillon. He was released by the Genevese in 1536, and led a stormy existence until his death in 1571.

As men's have grown from sudden fears. My limbs are bowed, 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 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 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
I cannot count them o'er,

For years

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