The Works of Lord Byron

But yet she lived-and all too soon
Recover'd from that death-like swoon-
But scarce to reason-every sense
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense;
And each frail fibre of her brain
(As bowstrings, when relax'd by rain,
The erring arrow lanch aside)

Bent forth her thoughts all wild and wide-
The past a blank, the future black,
With glimpses of a dreary track,
Like lightning on the desert path,
When midnight storms are mustering wrath.
She fear'd-she felt that something ill
Lay on her soul, so deep and chill-
That there was sin and shame she knew;
That some one was to die-but who?
She had forgotten:-did she breathe?
Could this be still the earth beneath,
The sky above, and men around;
Or were they fiends who now so frown'd
On one, before whose eyes each eye
Till then had smiled in sympathy?
All was confused and undefined

To her all-jarr'd and wandering mind;
A chaos of wild hopes and fears:
And now in laughter, now in tears,
But madly still in each extreme,
She strove with that convulsive dream;
For so it seem'd on her to break:
Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!

XV.

The Convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the gray square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go!
Hark! the hymn is singing-
The song for the dead below,

Or the living who shortly shall be so!

For a departing being's soul

The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll: He is near his mortal goal;

Kneeling at the Friar's knee;

Sad to hear-and piteous to see-
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,

With the block before and the guards around-
And the headman with his bare arm ready,
That the blow may be both swift and steady,
Feels if the axe be sharp and true-
Since he set its edge anew:

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather
To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father!

XVI.

It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
Which rose upon that heavy day,
And mock'd it with his steadiest ray;
And his evening beams are shed

Full on Hugo's fated head,
As his last confession pouring
To the monk, his doom deploring
In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.
That high sun on his head did glisten
As he there did bow and listen-
And the rings of chestnut hair
Curl'd half down his neck so bare,
But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter-
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!

Even the stern stood chill'd with awe: Dark the crime, and just the lawYet they shudder'd as they saw.

XVII.

The parting prayers are said and over
Of that false son-and daring lover!
His beads and sins are all recounted,
His hours to their last minute mounted-
His mantling cloak before was stripp'd,
His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd,
"T is done-all closely are they shorn-
The vest which till this moment worn-
The scarf which Parisina gave-
Must not adorn him to the grave.
Even that must now be thrown aside,
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied;
But no-that last indignity

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,

In deep disdain were half renew'd,

When headman's hands prepared to bind
Those eyes which would not brook such blind;

As if they dared not look on death.
"No-yours my forfeit blood and breath-
These hands are chain'd-but let me die
At least with an unshackled eye-
Strike:"-and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke
"Strike"-and flashing fell the stroke-
Roll'd the head-and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix for ever.
He died as erring man should dic,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the Prior kneeling,
His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling;
His wrathful sire-his paramour-
What were they in such an hour?
No more reproach-no more despair;
No thought but heaven-no word but prayer-
Save the few which from him broke,
When, bared to meet the headman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath;
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended
And with a hushing sound comprest,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock
Save one-what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill, so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless wo.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!

It was a woman's shriek-and ne'er In madlier accents rose despair; And those who heard it, as it past, In mercy wish'd it were the last.

XIX.

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen :
Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;

At least the knight's who died that day,
But Parisina's fate lies hid

Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,
And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful years

Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,

For that dark love she dared to feel;
Or if, upon the moment smote,
She died by tortures less remote;
Like him she saw upon the block,

With heart that shared the headman's shock,
'In quicken'd brokenness that came,
In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame,

None knew-and none can ever know:
But whatsoe'er its end below,
Her life began and closed in wo!'

XX.

And Azo found another bride,
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who wither'd in the grave;
Or if they were on his cold eye
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Or noticed with a smother'd sigh.
But never tear his cheek descended,
And never smile his brow unbended
And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought;

Those furrows which the burning share
Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there;
Scars of the lacerating mind

Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.

He was past all mirth or wo:
Nothing more remain❜d below
But sleepless nights and heavy days,
A mind all dead to scorn or praise,
A heart which shunn'd itself—and yet
That would not yield-nor could forget,
Which when it least appear'd to melt,
Intensely thought-intensely felt.
The deepest ice which ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close-
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows-and cannot cease to flow,
Still was his seal'd-up bosom haunted
By thoughts which Nature hath implanted;
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish;
When, struggling as they rise to start,
We check those waters of the heart,
They are not dried-those tears unshed
But flow back to the fountain head,
And resting in their spring more pure,
For ever in its depth endure,
Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd,
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd.
With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft;
Without the power to fill again
The desert gap which made his pain;
Without the hope to meet them where
United souls shall gladness share,
With all the consciousness that he
Had only pass'd a just decree;

That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still.
The tainted branches of the tree,

If lopp'd with care a strength may give,
By which the rest shall bloom and live
All greenly fresh and wildly free :
But if the lightning, in its wrath,
The waving boughs with fury scathe,
The massy trunk the ruin feels,
And never more a leaf reveals.

NOTES TO PARISINA.

who wrote a century afterwards, and who does not a cord with the contemporary historians.

Marquis, in the year 1405, had a son called Ugo, a beau"By the above-mentioned Stella dell' Assassino, the tiful and ingenious youth. Parisina Malatesta, second wife of Niccolo, like the generality of step-mothers, treated him with little kindness, to the infinite regret the Marquis, who regarded him with fond partiality. One day she asked leave of her husband to undertake a certain journey, to which he consented, but upon condition that Ugo should bear her company; for he hoped by these means to induce her, in the end, to lay aside the obstinate aversion which she had conceived against him. And indeed his intent was accomplished but too well, since, during the journey, she not only divested her. After their return, the Marquis had no longer any occaself of all her hatred, but fell into the opposite extreme sion to renew his former reproofs. It happened one day that a servant of the Marquis, named Zoese, or, as some call him, Giorgio, passing before the apartments of Parisina, saw going out from them one of her chambermaids, all terrified and in tears. Asking the reason, she told him that her mistress, for some slight offence'

around her head, submitted to the fatal stroke, which terminated the cruel scene. The same was done with Rangoni, who, together with the others, according to two calendars in the library of St. Francesco, was buried in the cemetery of that convent. Nothing else is known respecting the women.

had been beating her; and, giving vent to her rage, she added, that she could easily be revenged, if she chose to make known the criminal familiarity which subsisted between Parisina and her step-son. The servant took note of the words, and related them to his master. He was astounded thereat, but scarcely believing his ears, he assured himself of the fact, alas! too clearly, on the "The Marquis kept watch the whole of that dread18th of May, by looking through a hole made in the ful night, and, as he was walking backwards and forceiling of his wife's chamber. Instantly he broke into wards, inquired of the captain of the castle if Ugo was a furious rage, and arrested both of them, together with dead yet? who answered him, Yes. He then gave himAldobrandino Rangoni, of Modena, her gentleman, and self up to the most desperate lamentations, exclaiming also, as some say, two of the women of her chamber, 'Oh! that I too were dead, since I have been hurried as abettors of this sinful act. He ordered them to be on to resolve thus against my own Ugo! And then, brought to a hasty trial, desiring the judges to pronounce gnawing with his teeth a cane which he had in his hand, sentence, in the accustomed forms, upon the culprits. he passed the rest of the night in sighs and in tears, callThis sentence was death. Some there were that being frequently upon his own dear Ugo. On the followstirred themselves in favour of the delinquents, and, ing day, calling to mind that it would be necessary to among others, Ugoccion Contrario, who was all-power- make public his justification, seeing that the transaction ful with Niccolo, and also his aged and much deserving could not be kept secret, he ordered the narrative to be minister Alberto dal Sale. Both of these, their tears drawn out upon paper, and sent it to all the courts of flowing down their cheeks, and upon their knees, im- Italy. plored him for mercy: adducing whatever reasons they could suggest for sparing the offenders, besides those motives of honour and decency which might persuade him to conceal from the public so scandalous a deed. But his rage made him inflexible, and, on the instant, he commanded that the sentence should be put in execution. "It was, then, in the prisons of the castle, and exactly in those frightful dungeons which are seen at this day "The Marquis, in addition to what he had already beneath the chamber called the Aurora, at the foot of done, from some unaccountable burst of vengeance, comthe Lion's tower, at the top of the street Giovecca, that manded that as many of the married women as were on the night of the twenty-first of May were beheaded, well known to him to be faithless, like his Parisina, first, Ugo, and afterwards Parisina. Zoese, he that should, like her, be beheaded. Amongst others, Baraccused her, conducted the latter under his arm to the berina, or, as some call her, Laodamia Romei, wife of place of punishment. She, all along, fancied that she the court judge, underwent this sentence, at the usual was to be thrown into a pít, and asked at every step, place of execution, that is to say, in the quarter of St. whether she was yet come to the spot? She was told Giacomo, opposite the present fortress, beyond St. Paul's. that her punishment was the axe. She inquired what It cannot be told how strange appeared this proceeding was become of Ugo, and received for answer, that he in a prince, who, considering his own disposition, should was already dead; at the which, sighing grievously, she as it seemed, have been in such cases most indulgent. exclaimed, 'Now, then, I wish not myself to live; and, Some, however, there were, who did not fail to combeing come to the block, she stripped herself with her mend him."* own hands of all her ornaments, and wrapping a cloth |

"On receiving this advice, the Doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari, gave orders, but without publishing his reasons, that stop should be put to the preparations for a tournament, which, under the auspices of the Marquis, and at the expense of the city of Padua, was about to take place, in the square of St. Mark, in order to celebrate his advancement to the ducal chair.

* Frizzi-History of Ferrara.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

A FABLE.

SONNET ON CHILLON.
ETERNAL spirit of the chainless mind!
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,

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

My hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears:
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II.

There are seven pillars of gothic mold,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and gray
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 iron 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.

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 pined in heart;
'T was 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.

IV.

I was the eldest of the three,

And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do and did my bestAnd 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 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)→ 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 vills, Unless he could assuage the wo Which he abhorr'd to view below.

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 declineAnd 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,
Which round about the wave enthrals:
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,
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 loathed and put away his food;
It was not that 't was coarse and rude,
For we were used to hunter's fare,
And for the like had little care:
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,
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 unlock'd his chain,
And scoop'd for hin a shallow grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave.
I begg'd them, as a boon, to 'ay
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!

VII.

But he, the favourite and the flower, 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 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:
But these were horrors-this was wo
Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
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-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 knew it was hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

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 lived-I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last the sole the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on the earth, and one beneath-
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-
A frantic feeling, when we know
That what we love shall ne er be so.

I know not why

I could not die,

I had no earthly hope-but faith, And that forbade a selfish death.

IX.

What next befell me then and there
I know not well-I never knew-
First came the loss of light, and air,
And then of darkness too:
I had no thought, no feeling-none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and gray
It was not night—it was not day.

It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness-without a place;

There were no stars--no earth-no time-
No check-no change-no good-no crime--
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;

A sea of stagnant idleness,

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!

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 see
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 camo
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;

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

I sometimes deem'd that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,
And then 't was 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.

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 wo,
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;

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The Works of Lord Byron: In Verse and Prose. Including His Letters, Journals ...