Microsoft Word Byron and Scott 1809-1824
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‘But he, the favourite and the flower Most cherished since his natal hour, His mother’s image in fair face, The infant love of all his race, His martyred Father’s dearest thought, My latest care, for whom I sought To hoard my life that his might be Less wretched now – and one day free, He too – who yet had held untired 105: “And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word.–Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower;–and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out of.–Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.–But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very well within,–at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in” (Sterne, A Sentimental Journey ). See DJ IV, 109, 4. 106: Baron Franz von Trenck (1711-49) imprisoned for peculation in the Spielberg. 107: PoC ll.92-3. A Spirit natural or inspired— He, too, was struck, and day by day Was withered on the stalk away.’ 108 The effects of the survivor’s sorrow succeed. At first, furious and frantic at feeling himself the only being ‘in this black spot,’ and every link burst which bound him to humanity, he gradually falls into the stupor of despair and of apathy, the loss of sensation of light, air, and even of darkness. ‘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, For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; It was not night – it was not day – It was not even the dungeon-light So hateful to my heavy sight, But vacancy – absorbing space, And fixedness – without a place; There were no stars – no earth – no time – No check – no change – no good – no crime – But Silence – and a stirless breath Which neither was of life, nor death; A Sea of stagnant Idleness Blind – boundless – mute – and motionless!’ 109 The effects produced on the mind of the captive, by the casual visit of a bird, and by the view of the lake from the loop-hole of his prison, are next described. An extract from the latter shall form our last specimen of the poem. ‘I heard the torrents leap and gush O’er channelled rock and broken bush, I saw the white-walled distant town, 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 – it seemed no more Scarce broader than my dungeon floor; But in it there were three tall trees, [p.203] And o’er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing, And on it there were wild flowers growing, Of gentle breath and hue. 110 Freedom at length comes when the captive of Chillon, reconciled to his prison, had learned to consider it as ‘a hermitage all his own,’ and had become friends with the very shackles which he wore. It will readily be allowed that this singular poem is more powerful than pleasing. The dungeon of Bonnivard is, like that of Ugolino, 111 a subject too dismal for even the power of the painter or poet to counteract its horrors. It is the more disagreeable as affording human hope no anchor to rest upon, and describing the sufferer, though a man of talents and virtues, as altogether inert and powerless under his accumulated sufferings. Yet as a picture, however gloomy the colouring, it may rival any which Lord Byron has drawn, nor is it possible to read it without a sinking of the heart, corresponding with that which he describes the victim to have suffered. We have said that Lord Byron occasionally, though without concealing his own original features, assumes the manner and style of his contemporaries. Of these we have more than one instance in the present collection. It is impossible to read the Prisoner of Chillon without finding several passages— Download 1.07 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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