Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/49

Rh The dark vault lies wherein we lay:

We heard it ripple night and day;

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked;

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 rocked,

And I have felt it shake, unshocked,

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 '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 moistened 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's side;

But why delay the truth?—he died.