464 LORD BYRON'S RECKONING WITH THE WORLD.

world which has ceased to have any attractions - like the resolute speech of Pierre

"For this vile world and I have long been jangling,

And cannot part on better terms than now.

The reckoning, however, is steadily and sternly made; and though he does not spare himself, we must say that the world comes off much the worst in the comparison. The passage is very singular, and written with much force and dignity.

"Thus far I have proceeded in a theme

Renew'd with no kind auspices. To feel
We are not what we have been, and to deem
We are not what we should be; and to steel
The heart against itself; and to conceal,
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-
Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul! No matter!- it is taught.

"I have not lov'd the world nor the world me!
I have not flatter'd its rank breath; nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee,-

Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles,

nor cried aloud

In worship of an echo. In the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them," &c.

"I have not lov'd the world, nor the world me!

But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

Snares for the failing! I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,

That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."

The closing stanzas of the poem are extremely beautiful; but we are immovable in the resolution, that no statement of ours shall ever give additional publicity to the subjects of which they treat.

We come now to "The Prisoner of Chillon." It is very sweet and touching- though we can afford but a short account of it. Chillon is a ruined castle on the Lake of Geneva, in the dungeon of which three gallant brothers were confined, each chained to a separate pillar,

PRISONER OF CHILLON.

465

till, after long years of anguish, the two younger died, and were buried under the cold floor of the prison. The eldest was at length liberated, when worn out with age and misery and is supposed, in his joyless liberty, to tell, in this poem, the sad story of his imprisonment. The picture of their first feelings, when bound apart in this living tomb, and of the gradual sinking of their cheery fortitude, is full of pity and agony.

"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, and pin'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."

The return to the condition of the younger brother, the blooming Benjamin of the family, is extremely natural and affecting.

VOL. II.

"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 lov'd,
Because our mother's brow was giv'n
To him-with eyes as blue as heav'n,
For him my soul was sorely mov'd;
And truly might it be distrest
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) –
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."

H H

466

LORD BYRON

PRISONER OF CHILLON.

The gentle decay and gradual extinction of this youngest life, is the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem.

"But he, the favorite and the flow'r,
Most cherish'd since his natal hour,
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 this might be
Less wretched now, and one day free!
He, too, who yet had held untir'd
A spirit natural or inspir'd-
He, too, was struck! and day by day
Was wither'd on the stalk away.
He faded; and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender-kind,
And griev'd 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 - lost

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!

I call'd, for I was wild with fear;

I call'd, and thought I heard a sound
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rush'd to him! - I found him not,

I only stirr'd in this black spot,

I only liv'd I only drew

Th' accursed breath of dungeon-dew."

After this last calamity, he is allowed to be at large

in the dungeon.

66

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;

PRISONER OF CHILLON.

And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod."

467

He climbs up at last to the high chink that admitted the light to his prison; and looks out once more on the long-remembered face of nature, and the lofty forms of the eternal mountains.

"I saw them-and they were the same,

They were not chang'd like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high their wide long lake below,
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,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in 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 flow'rs 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 riding blast;
Methought he never flew so fast

As then to me he seem'd to fly."

The rest of the poems in this little volume, are less amiable — and most of them, we fear, have a personal and not very charitable application. One, entitled “Darkness," is free at least from this imputation. It is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the Heavenly bodies -executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force-but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical selection of incidents. The very conception is terrible, above all conception of known calamity - and is too oppressive to the imagination, to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry.

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air."

468

LORD BYRON - DARKNESS.

Cities and forests are burnt, for light and warmth.

"The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them! Some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd!
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world! and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd!"

Then they eat each other: and are extinguished!
The world was void,

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: As they dropp'd

They slept on the abyss without a surge

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them She was the universe."

There is a poem entitled "The Dream," full of living pictures, and written with great beauty and geniusbut extremely painful and abounding with mysteries into which we have no desire to penetrate. "The Incantation" and "Titan" have the same distressing character

though without the sweetness of the other. Some stanzas to a nameless friend, are in a tone of more open misanthropy. This is a favourable specimen of their tone and temper.

66

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,

Though lov'd, thou foreborest to grieve me,

Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,—

Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,

Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.'

Beautiful as this poetry is, it is a relief at last to close