lished; he had secured to himself a glory which must be as durable as the world itself.
It is difficult even for the imagination to conceive the feelings of such a man at the moment of so sublime a discovery. What a bewildering crowd of conjectures must have thronged upon his mind as to the land which lay before him, covered with darkness. That it was fruitful was evident, from the vegetables which floated from its shores. He thought, too, that he perceived in the balmy air the fragrance of aromatic groves. The moving light which he had beheld had proved that it was the residence of man. But what were its inhabitants? Were they like those of other parts of the globe? or were they some strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination in those times was prone to give to all remote and unknown regions? Had he come upon some wild island far in the Indian Sea? or was this the famed Cipango itself, the object of his golden fancies ? A thousand speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, as, with his anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away, wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves, and glittering fanes, and gilded cities, and all the splendour of oriental civilization.
Learn the spellings and meanings at the top of the page; and write sentences containing these words.
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.
My hair is grey, but not with years, it white
Nor grew
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears;
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
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 suffered chains and courted death;
That father perished 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,
Six in youth and one in age,
Finish'd as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire and two in field
Their belief with blood have seal'd
Dying, as their fathers died,
For the God their foes denied;
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
They chain'd us each to a column of 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,
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.
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 heavenFor him my soul was sorely moved. And truly might it be distressed 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 spirits 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.
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.
I said my nearest brother pined,
I said his mighty heart declined;
He loathed 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:
The milk drawn from the mountain goat
Was changed for water from the moat;
Our bread was such as captives' 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 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 him a shallow
grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave.
I begged 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!
What next befell me then and there
I knew 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;
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