Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.
New Poems, 1867Stanzas composed at Carnac
[First published 1867.]
F
Saint Michael’s chapel cuts the sky.
I climb’d;—beneath me, bright and wide,
Lay the lone coast of Brittany.
It lay beside the Atlantic wave,
As if the wizard Merlin’s will
Yet charm’d it from his forest grave.
Bearded with lichen, scrawl’d and grey,
The giant stones of Carnac sleep,
In the mild evening of the May.
Streams through their rows of pillars old;
No victims bleed, no Druids bow;
Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.
The orchis red gleams everywhere;
Gold broom with furze in blossom vies,
The blue-bells perfume all the air.
Rise up, all round, the Christian spires.
The church of Carnac, by the strand,
Catches the westerning sun’s last fires.
See, low above the tide at flood,
The sickle-sweep of Quiberon bay
Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!
All round, no soul, no boat, no hail!
But, on the horizon’s verge descried,
Hangs, touch’d with light, one snowy sail!
Where that far sail is passing now,
Past the Loire’s mouth, and by the foam
Of Finistère’s unquiet brow,
He tarries where the Rock of Spain
Mediterranean waters lave;
He enters not the Atlantic main.
Freshen’d by plunging tides, by showers!
Have felt this breath he loved, of fair
Cool northern fields, and grass, and flowers!
At the Straits fail’d that spirit brave.
The South was parent of his pain,
The South is mistress of his grave.