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.

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V

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.

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VI

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 inthralls:

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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 knocked;

And I have felt the winter's spray

Wash through the bars when winds were high
And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rocked,

And I have felt it shake, unshocked,

Because I could have smiled to see

The death that would have set me free.

VII

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 moistened 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;

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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 unlocked his chain,
And scooped for him a shallow grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave.
I begged them, as a boon, to lay
His corse in dust whereon the 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 laughed 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!

VIII

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But he, the favourite and the flower,
Most cherished since his natal hour,

Ilis mother's image in fair face,

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The infant love of all his race,

His martyred 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 withered on the stalk away.
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:

I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread :

But these were horrors this was woe
Unmixed with such but sure and slow:

He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

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As a departing rainbow's ray;
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright;
And not a word of murmur not

A groan o'er his untimely lot,

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In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting Nature's feebleness,

More slowly drawn, grew less and less :
I listened, but I could not hear;

I called, for I was wild with fear;
I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

I called, and thought I heard a sound-
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rushed to him: I found him not,

I only stirred in this black spot,

I only lived, I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,

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Which bound me to my failing race,

Was broken in this fatal place.

One on the earth, and one beneath

My brothers both had ceased to breathe!

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I took that hand which lay so still,

Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir, or strive,
But felt that I was still alive-

A frantic feeling, when we know

That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why

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