Analysis of The Prisoner of Chillon
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are bann'd, and barr'd--forbidden fare;
But this was for my father's faith
I suffer'd chains and courted death;
That father perish'd at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven--who now are one,
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finish'd as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied;--
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprison'd ray,
A sunbeam which hath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left;
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp:
And in each pillar there is a ring,
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away,
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years--I cannot count them o'er,
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother droop'd and died,
And I lay living by his side.
They chain'd us each to a column stone,
And we were three--yet, each alone;
We could not move a single pace,
We could not see each other's face,
But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight:
And thus together--yet apart,
Fetter'd in hand, but join'd in heart,
'Twas still some solace in the dearth
Of the pure elements of earth,
To hearken to each other's speech,
And each turn comforter to each
With some new hope, or legend old,
Or song heroically bold;
But even these at length grew cold.
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound, not full and free,
As they of yore were wont to be:
It might be fancy--but to me
They never sounded like our own.
I was the eldest of the three
And to uphold and cheer the rest
I ought to do--and did my best--
And each did well in his degree.
The youngest, whom my father loved,
Because our mother's brow was given
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven--
For him my soul was sorely moved:
And truly might it be distress'd
To see such bird in such a nest;
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 abhorr'd to view below.
The other was as pure of mind,
But form'd 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 wither'd 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 fetter'd feet the worst of ills.
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
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,
Which round about the wave inthralls:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made--and like a living grave
Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies wherein
Scheme | ABBACDCDEEXXFFGGHIHIJJKKLL MMNNNOOPPQRQRNNSSXXKK TTGGBBUUVVWWMMMTTXXXT XYYXXHHXYYNXXXXBHBNZA1 1 2 2 XX3 4 3 4 4 5 5 ZXXZ X1 1 XXA6 6 FX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 1111 00101 11111101 11111111 11010101 1111011 01110111 11010101 11011001 11111101 11010101 11010101 11011101 010111001 01010101 10101111 1010101 1011101 1111 10100101 1011111 1011101 1011101 1000101 11111101 1110101101 0110101 111010101 11010101 0111111 01010001 101111001 10100111 10101001 001101101 00111101 1101011 10111101 11111101 11111111 11110111 11110111 111101110 11110101 11110101 01110111 111110101 01011101 11110101 11111101 11110101 111100101 01010101 10011101 11110001 10110011 1111101 01110011 11111101 111001 11011111 101010101 11010101 01011101 11110111 11110111 110101101 11010101 01010101 11110111 01110101 01011101 0110101110 111111110 11111101 01011101 11110101 11110011 11110011 11110101 01011111 0111101 11010111 0111101 01111101 001100101 11111101 01111101 01110101 11011101 01011111 11110111 10110101 11010111 0100011 11110111 11010111 11110001 01010111 11111111 11010111 11010101 11010101 11110101 01010111 1101111 01010101 1110101 11010111 1111100 1101011 01010101 11010101 01010101 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,280 |
Words | 757 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 26, 21, 21, 23, 15, 10 |
Lines Amount | 116 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 504 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 126 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 06, 2023
- 3:57 min read
- 100 Views
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"The Prisoner of Chillon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15241/the-prisoner-of-chillon>.
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