Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/47

Rh 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 abhorred to view below.

V.

The other was as pure of mind,

But formed 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 withered 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 followed there the deer and wolf

To him this dungeon was a gulf,

And fettered 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