CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye Elements !-in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted— —can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd and unknown. CLXXX. His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime CLXXXIV. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy And trusted to thy billows far and near, CLXXXV. My task is done-my sung hath ceased-my theme The spell should break of this protracted dream. Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. CLXXXVI. Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been- He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 1816 SONNET ON CHILLON ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind! 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, By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON I. My hair is gray, 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 |