Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.

One on the earth, and one beneath 1

My brothers-both had ceased to breathe:
I took that hand which lay so still,

Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir, or strive,

But felt that I was still alive

220

1 Study carefully lines 216-219. Are they clear? What is "the eternal ̧

brink "?

? Can you conceive this image?

3 Try to imagine "vacancy absorbing space.."

There were no stars, no earth, no time,

245

No check, no change, no good, no crime,

That bird was perched,1 as fond and tame,

1 How could the bird be perched through a crevice?

1 Does the reader know what had made them so?

I saw them, and they were the same,2

They were not changed like me in frame;

1 This is much in the spirit of Wordsworth.

2 Many a tourist climbs to the loopholes of the dungeon, as the prisoner

And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled-and would fain
I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;

did and as Byron did, to view the scene here described.

360

The poet tells us in prose: "The Château de Chillon is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Bôveret and Saint-Gingo. Near it, on a hill, behind, is a torrent. . . Not far from Chillon is a very small island, the only one I could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake. tains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view."

It con