Chillon by Lord Byron. Upton Sinclair, ed. 1915. The Cry for Justice

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Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Chillon

By Lord Byron

(English poet of liberty, 1788–1824; died while taking part in the war for the liberation of Greece. Bonnivard, a patriot of Switzerland, was imprisoned with his sons in Chillon Castle. The story is told in Byron’s longer poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon”)


ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art—
For there thy habitation is the heart—
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign’d—	5
To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom—
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	10
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.

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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