For-Heaven forgive that thought! the while Which made me both to weep and smile;

I sometimes deemed that it might be

My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,

And then 'twas mortal-well I knew,
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone,-
Lone-as the corse within its shroud,
Lone as a solitary cloud,

A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear,
A frown upon the atmosphere,

That hath no business to appear

When skies are blue, and earth is gay.

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XI.

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,

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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.

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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,
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,

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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 seemed joyous each and all;

The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed 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 opprest,

Had almost need of such a rest.

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