SONNET ON CHILLON.

ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 2
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd-

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 't was trod, Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

1 When this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ancient freedom:

"François de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, originaire de Seysel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496. II fit ses études à Turin: en 1510 Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, son oncle, lui résigna le Prieuré de St. Victor, qui aboutis. sait aux murs de Genève, et qui formait un bénéfice con. sidérable.

"Ce grand homme- (Bonnivard mérite ce titre par la force de son âme, la droiture de son cœur, la noblesse de ses intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage de ses démarches, l'étendue de ses connaissances et la vivacité de son esprit), ce grand homme, qui excitera l'admiration de tous ceux qu'une vertu héroïque peut encore émouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive reconnaissance dans les cours des Génévois qui aiment Genève Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus fermes appuis: pour assurer la liberté de notre Ré. publique, il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia son repos; il méprisa ses richesses; il ne négligea rien pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix dès ce moment il la chérit comme le plus zélé de ses citoyens; i la servit avec l'intrépidité d'un héros, et il écrivit son Histoire avec la naïveté d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un patriote.

"Il dit dans le commencement de son Histoire de Genève, que des qu'il cut commencé de lire l'histoire des nations, il se sentit entrainé par son goût pour les Républiques, dont il épousa toujours les intérêts: c'est ce goût pour la liberté qui lui fit sans doute adopter Genève pour sa patrie.

ans.

"Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonça hautement comme le défenseur de Genève contre le Duc de Savoye et l'Evêque. "En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie. Le Duc de Savoye étant entré dans Genève avec cinq cent hommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Duc, il voulut se retirer à Fribourg pour en éviter les suites, mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l'accompagnaient, et conduit par ordre du Prince à Grolée, où il resta prisonnier pendant deux Bonnivard était malheureux dans ses voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avaient point ralenti son zèle pour Genève, il était toujours un ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la mena çaient, et par conséquent il devait étre exposé à leurs coups. Il fut rencontré en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le dépouillèrent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Duc de Savoye ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Château de Chillon, où il resta sans être interrogé jusques en 1536; il fut alors delivré par les Bernois, qui s'emparèrent du Pays de Vaud. "Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivité, cut le plaisir de trouver Genève libre et réformée : la République s'empressa de lui témoigner sa reconnaissance, et de dédommager des maux qu'il avoit soufferts; elle le reçut Bourgeois de la ville au mois de Juin, 1536; elle lui donna la maison habitée autrefois par le Vicaire-Général, et elle lui assigna une pension de deux cent écus d'or tant qu'il séjournerait à Genève. 11 fut admis dans le Conseil de Deux-Cent en 1537.

"Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'être utile: après avoir travaillé à rendre Genève libre, il réussit à la rendre tolérante.

Bon

By Bonnivard !- May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.

The Prisoner of Chillon.

I.

My hair is grey, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears:

nivard engagea le Conseil à accorder aux ecclésiastiques et aux paysans un tems suffisant pour examiner les propositions qu'on leur faisait; il réussit par sa douceur: on prèche toujours le Christianisme avec succès quand on le prèche avec charité.

"Bonnivard fut savant: ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la Bibliothèque publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu les auteurs classiques Latins, et qu'il avait approfondi la théologie et l'histoire. Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et il croyait qu'elles pouvaient faire la gloire de Genève; aussi il ne négligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville naissante; en 1551 il donna sa bibliothèque au public; elle fut le commencement de notre bibliothèque publique; et ces livres sont en partie les rares et belles éditions du quinzième siècle qu'on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, pendant la même année, ce bon pa triote institua la République son héritière, à condition qu'elle employerait ses biens à entretenir le collège dont on projet.

tait la fondation.

"Il parait que Bonnivard mourut en 1570; mais on ne peut l'assurer, parcequ'il y a une lacune dans le Nécrologe depuis le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques en 1571.”

[Lord Byron wrote this beautiful poem at a small inn, in the little village of Ouchy, near Lausanne, where he happened in June, 1816, to be detained two days by stress of weather; "thereby adding," says Moore," one more deathless associ ation to the already immortalised localities of the Lake."] 2 [In the first draught, the sonnet opens thusBeloved Goddess of the chainless mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
Thy palace is within the Freeman's heart,
Whose soul the love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd-

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Thy joy is with them still, and unconfined,

Their country conquers with their martyrdom."] 3["I will tell you something about Chillou.' A Mr. De Luc, ninety years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it so my sister writes. He said that he was with Rousseau at Chillon, and that the description is petfectly correct. But this is not all; I recollected something of the name, and find the following passage in The Cofessions, vol. iii. p. 247. liv. viii. De tous ces amusemens celui qui me plut davantage fut une promenade autour du Lac, que je fis en bateau avec De Luc père, sa bru, ses deur fils, et ma Therèse. Nous mimes sept jours à cette tournée par le plus beau temps du monde. J'en gardai le vif souvenir des sites, qui m'avaient frappé à l'autre extrémité du Let, et dont je fis la description quelques années après, dans 'La Nouvelle Héloïse.'' This nonagerian, De Luc, must be ca of the deux fils.' He is in England, infirm, but still faculty. It is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness, that he should have made this voyage with Jean Jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a poem by an Englishman (who made precisely the same cir cumnavigation) upon the same scenery."- Byron Letters. April 9, 1817. Jean André de Luc, F.R.S., died at Windsor, in the July following. He was born in 1726, at Geneva, was the author of many geological works, and corresponded with most of the learned societies of Europe]

4 Ludovico Sforza, and others. The same is asserted of

My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose, 1
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,

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 irou 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.

III.

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 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

Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect: to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be attributed.

[Original MS.

"But with the inward waste of grief."] ["Braving rancour-chains- and rage."— MS.]

[This picture of the first feelings of the three gallant brothers, when bound apart in this living tomb, and of the gradual decay of their cheery fortitude, is full of pity and agony.-JEFFREY.]

• The Château de Chillon is situated between Clarens and

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 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.

V.

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 follow'd there the deer and wolf,
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fetter'd 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, 4

Which round about the wave enthrals:

Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet, French measure: within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the fettered in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. He was confined here several years. It is by

I saw,

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 mould
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side;
But why delay the truth? - he died.
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 2 my bonds in twain.
He died and they unlock'd 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 !

VIIL

But he, the favourite and the flower, Most cherish'd since his natal hour,

this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his Héloïse, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death. The château is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white." The early history of this castle," says Mr. Tennant, who went over it in 1821," is, I believe, involved in doubt. By some historians it is said to be built in the year 1120, and according to others, in the year 1236; but by whom it was built seems not to be known. It is said, however, in history, that Charles the Fifth, Duke of Savoy, stormed and took it in 1536; that he there found great hidden treasures, and many wretched beings pining away their lives in these frightful dungeons, amongst whom was

His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyr'd father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired ·

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd on the stalk away.
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:
I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed

Of Sin delirious with its dread:

-

So tearless, yet so tender-kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
With all the while a cheek whose bloom
Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur - not
A groan o'er his untimely lot, —
A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence
In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,
More slowly drawn, grew less and less:
I listen'd, but I could not hear;

lost

the good Bonnivard. On the pillar to which this unfortu nate man is said to have been chained, I observed, cut out of the stone, the name of one whose beautiful poem has done much to heighten the interest of this dreary spot, and will, perhaps, do more towards rescuing from oblivion the names of Chillon' and Bonnivard,' than all the cruel sufferings which that injured man endured within its damp and gloomy walls."]

["But why withhold the blow?- he died."- MS.]

2 ["To break or bite."- MS.]

3 [The gentle decay and gradual extinction of the youngest life is the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem. JEFFREY.]

11

A light broke in upon my brain, -
It was the carol of a bird;

It ceased, and then it came again,

The sweetest song ear ever heard,
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not sce
I was the mate of misery;

But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before,
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done,
But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;
A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seem'd to say them all for me!

I never saw its like before,

I ne'er shall see its likeness more:
It seem'd like me to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate,
And it was come to love me when
None lived to love me so again,
And cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.
I know not if it late were free,

Or broke its cage to perch on mine,

But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine!

Or if it were, in winged guise,

A visitant from Paradise;

["I saw them with their lake below,

And their three thousand years of snow."- MS.]

↑ Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could

A kind of change came in my fate,
My keepers grew compassionate;

I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe,
But so it was: - my broken chain
With links unfasten'd did remain,
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,

And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick.
XII.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child-no sire-no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had made me mad;

But I was curious to ascend

To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII.

I saw them-and they were the same, They were not changed like me in frame;

I saw their thousand years of snow

On high-their wide long lake below,1
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;

I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle, 2
Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view.

A small green isle, it seem'd no more, Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, But in it there were three tall trees, And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing,

And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly,

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;

It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,—
And yet my glance, too much oppress'd,
Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days, I kept no count-I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free,

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where, It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair. And thus when they appear'd at last, And all my bonds aside were cast, These heavy walls to me had grown A hermitage-and all my own! And half I felt as they were come To tear me from a second home: With spiders I had friendship made, And watch'd them in their sullen trade, Had seen the mice by moonlight play, And why should I feel less than they? We were all inmates of one place, And I, the monarch of each race, Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell ! In quiet we had learn'd to dwell; My very chains and I grew friends, So much a long communion tends To make us what we are: - even I Regain'd my freedom with a sigh. 2

1

S. A. 3

2 [It has not been the purpose of Lord Byron to paint the peculiar character of Bonnivard. The object of the poem, like that of Sterne's celebrated sketch of the prisoner, is to consider captivity in the abstract, and to mark its effects in gradually chilling the mental powers as it benumbs and freezes the animal frame, until the unfortunate victim becomes, as it were, a part of his dungeon, and identified with his chains. This transmutation we believe to be founded on fact: at least, in the Low Countries, where solitude for life is substituted for capital punishments, something like it may be witnessed. On particular days in the course of the year, these victims of a jurisprudence which calls itself humane, are presented to the public eye, upon a stage erected in the open market-place, apparently to prevent their guilt and their punishment from being forgotten. It is scarcely possible to witness a sight more degrading to humanity than this exhibition: with matted hair, wild looks, and haggard features, with eyes dazzled by the unwonted light of the sun, and ears

opened a new vein, in which his genius was destined to work out some of its brightest triumphs. "I have written," he says to Mr. Murray," a poem humourous, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft, and founded on a Venetian anecdote which

deafened and astounded by the sudden exchange of the silen of a dungeon for the busy hum of men, the wretches sit mor like rude images fashioned to a fantastic imitation of humanity, than like living and reflecting beings. In the course of time we are assured they generally become either madmen er idiots, as mind or matter happens to predominate, when that mysterious balance between them is destroyed. It will readily be allowed that this singular poem is more powertul than pleasing. The dungeon of Bonnivard is, like that of Ugolins, a subject too dismal for even the power of the painter or poet to counteract its horrors. It is the more disagreeable as affording human hope no anchor to rest upon, and describing the sufferer, though a man of talents and virtues, as altogether inert and powerless under his accumulated sufferings: yet, as a picture, however gloomy the colouring, it may rival any which Lord Byron has drawn; nor is it possible to read t without a sinking of the heart, corresponding with that which he describes the victim to have suffered - SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

3 [Although I was only nine days at Venice, I saw, t that little time, more liberty to sin, than ever I heard tell of in the city of London in nine years.' Roger Ascham.]