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 flowed like mountain rills,

Unless he could assuage the woe

Which he abhorr'd to view below.

V.

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 perish'd 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;

90

100

But yet I forced it on to cheer

Those relies 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 fettered feet the worst of ills.

VI.

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, 3

Which round about the wave enthralls:

A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made and like a living grave.
Below the surface of the lake

The dark vault lies wherein we lay,

110

We heard it ripple night and day;

Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd;

And I have felt the winter's spray

Wash through the bars when winds were high

And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rock'd,

And I have felt it shake, unshock'd,

Because I could have smiled to see

The death that would have set me free.

VII.

I said my nearer brother pined,

I said his mighty heart declined,

He loath'd and put away his food;

It was not that 'twas coarse and rude,
For we were used to hunter's fare,
And for the like had little care:

119

130

The milk drawn from the mountain goat
Was changed for water from the moat,
Our bread was such as captive's tears
Have moisten'd many a thousand years,
Since man first pent his fellow men
Like brutes within an iron den :

But what were these to us or him?
These wasted not his heart or limb;
My brother's soul was of that mold
Which in a palace had grown cold,

140

Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side;
But why delay the truth?―he died.

I saw, and could not hold his head,
Nor reach his dying hand-nor dead,
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain,
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain.
He died-and they unlocked his chain,

And scoop'd for him a shallow grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave.
I begg❜d them, as a boon, to lay
His corse in dust whereon the day
Might shine-it was a foolish thought,
But then within my brain it wrought,
That even in death his freeborn breast
In such a dungeon could not rest.

I might have spared my idle prayer-
They coldly laugh'd—and laid him there :

The flat and turfless earth above

The being we so much did love;

His empty chain above it leant,

Such murder's fitting monument!

150

160

VIII.

But he, the favorite and the flower,

Most cherish'd since his natal hour,