severe,

sneer;

demn;

allay'd

By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust, Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd;

And when it shall revive, as is our trust,

"T will be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

But let me quit man's works, again to read

His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend

This page, which from my reveries I feed, Until it seems prolonging without end. The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,

And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er

May be permitted, as my steps I bend To their most great and growing region, where

The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages.
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost
won thee,

To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
Thou wert the throne and grave of
empires; still,

The fount at which the panting mind assuages

Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,

Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Renew'd with no kind auspices: to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem

We are not what we should be, and to steel

The heart against itself; and to conceal, What a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught

Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal,

Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,

Is a stern task of soul :-No matter,-it is taught.

And for these words, thus woven into song,

it may be that they are a harmless

wile,

The coloring of the scenes which fleet

along,

Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile

My breast, or that of others, for a while. Fame is the thirst of youth, but I am not

So young as to regard men's frown or smile,

As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot : I stood and stand alone,-remember'd or forgot.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

I have not flatter'd its rauk breath, nor bow'd

To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud

In worship of an echo; in the crowd They could not deem me one of such; I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,

Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

I have not loved the world, nor the world

me,

But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be

To whom the goodly earth and air
Are bann'd, and barr'd-forbidden fare;
But this was for my father's faith
I suffer'd chains and courted death;
That father perish'd 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,
Finish'd as they had begun,

Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
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 imprison'd 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 so rise
For years-I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score,
When my last brother droop'd and died
And I lay living by his side.

They chain'd 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,
Fetter'd in hand, but join'd 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 bestAnd 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 distress'd 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 nought but others' ills, And then they flow'd like mountain rills, Unless he could assuage the woe Which he abhorr'd to view below.

The other was as pure of mind,
But form'd to combat with his kind;
Strong in his frame, and of a mood
Which 'gainst the world in war had
stood,

And perish'd in the foremost rank

With joy :-but not in chains to pine: His spirit wither'd 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 follow'd there the deer and wolf; To him his dungeon was a gulf, And fetter'd feet the worst of ills.

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls : A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent From Chillon's snow-white battlement, Which round about the wave inthrals: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made and like a living grave Below the surface of the lake The dark vault lies wherein we lay, We heard it ripple night and day;

Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd; And I have felt the winter's spray

Wash though the bars when winds were

high

And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rock'd, And I have felt it shake, unshock'd Because I could have smiled to see The death that would have set me free.

I said my nearer brother pined,
I said his mighty heart declined,
He loathed and put away his food;
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude,
For we were used to hunter's fare,
And for the like had little care:
The milk drawn from the mountain goat
Was changed for water from the moat,
Our bread was such as captives' tears
Have moisten'd many a thousand years,
Since man first pent his fellow men
Like brutes within an iron den;
But what were these to us or him?
These wasted not his heart or limb;
My brother's soul was of that mould
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side;
But why delay the truth ?-he died.
I saw, and could not hold his head,
Nor reach his dying hand-nor dead.-
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain.
He died, and they unlock'd his chain,
And scoop'd for him a shallow grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave,
I begg'd them as a boon t lay
His corse in dust whereon he day
Might shine-it was a foolish thought,
But then within my brain it wrought,
That even in death his freeborn breast
In such a dungeon could not rest.
I might have spared my idle prayer―
They coldly laugh'd, and laid him there.
The flat and turfless earth above
The being we so much did love;
His empty chain above it leant,
Such murder's fitting monument!

But he, the favorite and the flower,
Most cherish'd since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyr'd father's dearest thought
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired-
He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd on the stalk away.