In Byron's Foosteps

During my recent vacation in Switzerland, I visited Chillon Castle, which is renowned through the world and romanticized in memory because Lord Byron visited there, carved his name in one of the dungeon's pillars, and wrote the beautiful (if perhaps historically inaccurate) poem, "The Prisoner of Chillon". Upon visiting this place, what could I do but write a poem?

My poem has the same meter (iambic tretameter) as Byron's poem--coincidentally, actually, I didn't think about it at the time--but a different rhyme scheme.

I walk through dungeons dark and cold.

A poet of another time,

A master ‘mong the bards of old

Once walked through here and spun a rhyme.

Through stone on stone and stone on stone,

Beside the lapping lake he walked—

A man both arrogant and lone—

And carved his name upon the rocks.

He saw the dreariness and chill

And dreamed a tale of grief and woe;

That tale is known and treasured still,

And hundreds visit here below.

And I myself—I think and dream

Amongst the arches and the stones.

Beside the water’s steadfast gleam

I hear the memories of groans.

What people were imprisoned here—

And driven crazy by the lapping,

The lake invisible but near—

The fear and darkness their strength sapping?

What men were bound against these pillars,

Entrapped with chains of chill and must?

And were they thieves and violent killers,

Or were they prey to the unjust?

How many huddled in the shades

Or perched upon the looming stones

And wept because they were afraid

Or broken,  tormented, and lone?

What tales might be recorded here

By greater, fairer pens than mine

If human memory were clear,

Each detail of the past enshrined?

But human mem’ry fades away,

The past lies wrapped in muddled dreams;

For every fact still known today,

A thousand fantasies are seen.

When Byron visited this place

He wrote a tale with truth bedimmed,

And I, in following his pace,

Now write romanticizing him.

(Photograph taken by myself in the dungeons of Chillon Castle)