"Into these glassy eyes put light;—be still! keep down thine ire! Bid these white lips a blessing speak,—this earth is not my sire! Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed, Thou canst not?—and a king!—his dust be mountains on thy head!"
He loosed the steed; his slack hand fell; upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look,—then turned from that sad place. His hope was crushed, his after-fate untold in martial strain: His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain.
FELICIA HEMANS.
THE PRISONER OF 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 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. 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.
————
My hair is gray, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, 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 spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air 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; 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, 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; Three were in a dungeon cast, Of whom this wreck is left the last.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns, massy and gray, 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, 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 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 to rise For years,—I cannot count them o'er, I lost their long and heavy score When my last brother drooped and died, And I lay living by his side.
They chained us each to a column stone, And we were three, yet each alone; 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, Fettered in hand, but pined 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 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, 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.
I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do—and did—my best, And each did well in his degree. The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him, with eyes as blue as heaven,— For him my soul was sorely moved; And truly might it be distrest To see such bird in such a nest; For he was beautiful as day (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, 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, Unless he could assuage the woe Which he abhorred to view below.
The other was as pure of mind, But formed to combat with his kind; Strong in his frame, and of a mood Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, And perished in the foremost rank 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.