THREE LONG POEMS

No one of the three poems which follow is as long as "Horatius," but each is long enough to present a series of scenes and a variety of ideas. They need to be read with attention to the progress of the story and the sequence of the thought.

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The three poems are not alike. The first, "The Prisoner of Chillon," is a narrative based on an actual occurrence. The poem asks us to imagine how a prisoner in the old dungeon would have felt and acted, and stirs us by its story of suffering which we feel to be true. The second poem, 10 "The Forsaken Merman," is also a narrative but it has nothing to do with facts. It tells of a Merman, married to a human, and of their children, and asks us to imagine human feeling and speech in the beautiful caves of the sea. Here you will find the imagination carrying you very far from 15 reality and yet keeping a real hold on your emotions. The third poem, "The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," is a reflective poem. It tells no story but sets forth the reflections on life and death that come to the poet as he wanders about the churchyard.

In all three poems the expression is well-nigh perfect. Each word, rhythm, and picture fits into the whole. Yet, in each there is a different purpose for which the poet is working through his beautiful art.

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THE PRISONER OF CHILLON

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My hair is grey, 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's 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.

II

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
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 so rise
For years
I lost their long and heavy score

-I cannot count them o'er,

When my last brother dropped and died,

And I lay living by his side.

III

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,

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But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight:
And thus together yet apart,
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart,
'Twas 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.

IV

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 distressed

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.

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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,