Close slowly round me as before,
I saw the glimmer of the sun

Creeping as it before had done,

But through the crevice where it came

That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;

A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,

And seem'd to say them all for me!

I never saw its like before,

I ne'er shall see its likeness more:

It seem'd like me to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate,

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Which made me both to weep and smile—

I sometimes deem'd that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,
And then 'twas mortal - well I knew,
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone,
Lone
Lone

as the corse within its shroud,
as a solitary cloud,

A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear,

A frown upon the atmosphere,

That hath no business to appear

When skies are blue, and earth is gay.

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ΧΙ

A kind of change came in my fate,
My keepers grew compassionate;
I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe,
But so it was: my broken chain
With links unfasten'd did remain,
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,

My breath came gaspingly and thick,

And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick.

XII

I made a footing in the wall,

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I saw them

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and they were the same,

They were not changed like me in frame;

And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.

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At last men came to set me free;

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where;
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.

And thus when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown

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 consign'd

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 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

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By Bonnivard !

May none those marks efface!

For they appeal from tyranny to God.

STANZAS FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

(CANTO IV, LXXVIII-LXXX: ROME)

OH Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.

What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, - Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day-

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

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Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride:

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She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,

Where the car climb'd the Capitol; far and wide

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :
Chaos of ruins! Who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,

And say, "Here was, or is," where all is doubly night?

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