[LORD BYRON]
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON
A Fable
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.[107] My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,5 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 Are banned, and barred—forbidden fare;10 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; And for the same his lineal race15 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, Proud of Persecution's rage;20 One in fire, and two in field, Their belief with blood have sealed[108]: Dying as their father died, For the God their foes denied;— Three were in a dungeon cast,25 Of whom this wreck is left the last.
II
There are seven[109] pillars of Gothic mould In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns massy and gray, Dim with a dull imprisoned ray,30 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, Like a marsh's meteor lamp[110]:35 And in each pillar there is a ring, And in each ring there is a chain; That iron is a cankering[111] thing, For in these limbs its teeth remain, With marks that will not wear away40 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, I lost their long and heavy score45 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; We could not move a single pace,50 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, Fettered in hand, but joined in heart;55 'Twas still some solace, in the dearth Of the pure elements[112] of earth, To hearken to each other's speech, And each turn comforter to each With some new hope or legend old,60 Or song heroically bold; But even these at length grew cold. Our voices took a dreary tone, An echo of the dungeon stone, A grating sound—not full and free65 As they of yore were wont to be; It might be fancy—but to me They never sounded like our own.
IV