The Prisoner of Chillon

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 bow'd, 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 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 grey,
  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,
  '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.

   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 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 followed 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 inthralls:
  A double dungeon wall and wave
  Have made--and like a living grave
  Below the surface of the lake
  The dark vault lies wherein