secrets Of paths that have never by footsteps been trodden. In the ice temple his figure majestic Looms from a throne that through aeons uncounted Has stood in the gloom and the silence eternal. Weird is the throng of the spirits in thraldom: Silent they steal from their icy sepulture, Slow-pacing figures unchanged and unchanging: By violent death, swift, ruthless and lonely, Sentenced to wander for ever in darkness, Pent in the masterful ice god's dominion. Primitive hunters with flint-headed arrows, Whose limited minds ignored the distinction Engendered by knowledge, of good and of evil: Acting by impulse and guided by instinct: Living in caves like the bears and the foxes, Facing with cunning and courage their quarry, Guarding their women and feeding their children, Almost as fierce as the creatures they hunted. Men who came later throughout the long ages, Wandering fugitives driven by fortune Far from their homes to the wild desolation, Slaves of illusion that lures to destruction: Some with a love for adventure and daring, Some to escape from the ills that pursued them, Some in response to the strong fascination That calls from the heights of the untrodden mountains, All destined by fate, that watches unceasing, To die in the darkness forgotten for ever, Pent in the ice god's immutable kingdom. 

 Wafted by breezes, my white-sailed felucca Slipped through the blueness to where the grim stronghold Of Chillon keeps ever in grateful remembrance The patriot Bonivard, champion of freedom. The pillar of pain where, writhing in torment, The captives were scourged at cruelty's bidding, Is still to be seen, an eloquent witness. Tenantless now is the cavernous dungeon Where wretches awaited through darkness unending The dawn of their last and dreaded to-morrow. Stripped of its horrors, the chamber of torture Echoes no more to the shrieks of its victims, And death's grim abode where agony ended Is free from the crimes that redden its records. There by the column of stone in the dungeon Where Bonivard lay to pine through the seasons Of six weary years, I mused on his story. Undaunted by death's ever-threatening shadow, Unconquered though insolent tyranny triumphed, Chilled in the summer and frozen in winter, Famished, neglected and loaded with fetters, Yet borne up within by courage unflinching, Supported by Faith when Hope had departed, Scorning to murmur, he waited with patience. Morning's faint light through the narrow embrasure, The wandering cry of a sea-mew in freedom Heightened the gloom of his roughly hewn prison, Making a summons to death a deliverance. Night fell about him in Stygian darkness, While the faint lap of the waters of Leman, Beating the ramparts with madding persistence, 

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