Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII

I saw them, and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow

On high

their wide long lake below,

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow ;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channelled rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-walled distant town,1
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle,2 it seemed no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,

And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,

And by it there were waters flowing,

And on it there were young flowers growing,

Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,

And they seemed joyous each and all;

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The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed to fly;

1 Villeneuve.

2" Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view." - Byron's note.

And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled - and would fain

I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,

Closing o'er one we sought to save,

And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV

It might be months, or years, or days

I kept no count, I took no note I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;

At last men came to set me free;

I asked not why, and recked not where ;
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,

I learned to love despair.

And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,

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Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell;
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are; - even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA

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These stanzas were written at the Villa Diodati, near Geneva, July, 1816, and form one of several poems addressed to the poet's halfsister, Augusta (Mrs. Leigh), who was true to her brother through all his career, and for whom he felt the warmest affection up to the very end of his life. This is but one among Byron's many autobiographical poems, the egotism of which is amply redeemed by the revela tion of a rich and interesting personality.

I

HOUGH the day of my Destiny's over,

TH the star

And the star of my Fate hath declined,

Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;

Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,

And the Love which my Spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in Thee.

II

Then when Nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from Thee.