Read "Stanzas Composed at Carnac" by Matthew Arnold online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Far on its rocky knoll descried / Saint Michael's chapel cuts the sky.
I climb'd; -- beneath me, bright and wide, / Lay the lone coast of Brittany.
Bright in the sunset, weird and still, / It lay beside the Atlantic wave, / As though the wizard Merlin's will / Yet charm'd it from his forest grave.
Behind me on their grassy sweep, / Bearded with lichen, scrawl'd and grey, / The giant stones of Carnac sleep, / In the mild evening of the May.
No priestly stern procession now / Moves through their rows of pillars old; / No victims bleed, no Druids bow; / Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.
From bush to bush the cuckoo flies, / The orchis red gleams everywhere; / Gold broom with furze in blossom vies, / The bluebells perfume all the air.
And o'er the glistening, lonely land, / Rise up, all round, the Christian spires.
The church of Carnac, by the strand, / Catches the westering sun's last fires.
And there across the watery way, / See, low above the tide at flood, / The sickle-sweep of Quiberon bay, / Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!
And beyond that, the Atlantic wide! --
All round, no soul, no boat, no hail!
But, on the horizon's verge descried, / Hangs, touch'd with light, one snowy sail!
Ah! where is he, who should have come39
Where that far sail is passing now, / Past the Loire's mouth, and by the foam / Of Finistère's unquiet brow, / Home, round into the English wave? --
He tarries where the Rock of Spain / Mediterranean waters lave; / He enters not the Atlantic main.
Oh, could he once have reach'd this air / Freshen'd by plunging tides, by showers!
Have felt this breath he loved, of fair / Cool northern fields, and grass, and flowers!
He long'd for it -- press'd on! -- In vain.
At the Straits fail'd that spirit brave.
The South was parent of his pain, / The South is mistress of his grave.