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 'twas 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.

SOLITUDE

LORD BYRON

[From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto

III, 1817]

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view

The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue;

There is too much of man here, to look through

With a fit mind the might which I behold;

But soon in me shall Loneliness renew Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old,

Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind;

All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil
In the hot throng, where we become the
spoil

Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil,

In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong

'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years

In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears,

And color things to come with hues of Night:

The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness; on the

sea

The boldest steer but where their ports invite,

But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.

Is it not better, then, to be alone,

And love Earth only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear?

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me: and to me,
High mountains are a feeling, but the
hum

Of human cities torture; I can see
Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Class'd among creatures, when the soul
can flee,

And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain

Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life:
I look upon the peopled desert past,
As on a place of agony and strife,
Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was
cast,

To act and suffer, but remount at last With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,

Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast

Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,

Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free

From what it hates in this degraded form, Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly and worm,When elements to elements conform,

And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm?

The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?

Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part

Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn

All objects, if compared with these? and

Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the
brakes

Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill,

But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse

Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate

Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:

All heaven and earth are still: from the high host

Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountaincoast,

All is concenter'd in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defense.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth which through our being then
doth melt,

And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes
known

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm

The specter Death, had he substantial power to harm.

Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take

A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,

Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and

compare

Columns and idol dwellings, Goth or Greek,

With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,

Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!

Thy sky is changed!-and such a change! O night,