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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,

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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 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 this 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 enthrals:

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 through 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 pin'd,

I said his mighty heart declin'd;

He loath'd 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 captive's 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, 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 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 favourite 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, untir'd,
A spirit natural or inspir'd,

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd 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
Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow:

He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yet so tender-kind,

And griev'd for those he left behind;
With all the while a cheek whose bloom

Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
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,—
A little talk of better days,
A little hope-my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence--lost
In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,

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