Matthew Arnold's “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” (1852; 1855) 1

Matthew Arnold’s 52 Nor yet to amuse, as ours are! “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” (1852; 1855) 53 They paint of souls the inner strife, 54 Their drops of blood, their death in life.

1 Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused 55 The garden, overgrown--yet mild, 2 With rain, where thick the crocus blows, 56 See, fragrant herbs are flowering there! 3 Past the dark forges long disused, 57 Strong children of the Alpine wild 4 The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. 58 Whose culture is the brethren's care; 5 The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride, 59 Of human tasks their only one, 6 Through forest, up the mountain-side. 60 And cheerful works beneath the sun.

7 The autumnal evening darkens round, 61 Those halls, too, destined to contain 8 The wind is up, and drives the rain; 62 Each its own pilgrim-host of old, 9 While, hark! far down, with strangled sound 63 From England, Germany, or Spain-- 10 Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain, 64 All are before me! I behold 11 Where that wet smoke, among the woods, 65 The House, the Brotherhood austere! 12 Over his boiling cauldron broods. 66 --And what am I, that I am here?

13 Swift rush the spectral vapours white 67 For rigorous teachers seized my youth, 14 Past limestone scars with ragged pines, 68 And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, 15 Showing--then blotting from our sight!-- 69 Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, 16 Halt--through the cloud-drift something shines! 70 There bade me gaze, and there aspire. 17 High in the valley, wet and drear, 71 Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: 18 The huts of Courrerie appear. 72 What dost thou in this living tomb?

19 Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher 73 Forgive me, masters of the mind! 20 Mounts up the stony forest-way. 74 At whose behest I long ago 21 At last the encircling trees retire; 75 So much unlearnt, so much resign'd-- 22 Look! through the showery twilight grey 76 I come not here to be your foe! 23 What pointed roofs are these advance?-- 77 I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, 24 A palace of the Kings of France? 78 To curse and to deny your truth;

25 Approach, for what we seek is here! 79 Not as their friend, or child, I speak! 26 Alight, and sparely sup, and wait 80 But as, on some far northern strand, 27 For rest in this outbuilding near; 81 Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek 28 Then cross the sward and reach that gate. 82 In pity and mournful awe might stand 29 Knock; pass the wicket! Thou art come 83 Before some fallen Runic stone-- 30 To the Carthusians' world-famed home. 84 For both were faiths, and both are gone.

31 The silent courts, where night and day 85 Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 32 Into their stone-carved basins cold 86 The other powerless to be born, 33 The splashing icy fountains play-- 87 With nowhere yet to rest my head, 34 The humid corridors behold! 88 Like these, on earth I wait forlorn. 35 Where, ghostlike in the deepening night, 89 Their faith, my tears, the world deride-- 36 Cowl'd forms brush by in gleaming white. 90 I come to shed them at their side.

37 The chapel, where no organ's peal 91 Oh, hide me in your gloom profound, 38 Invests the stern and naked prayer-- 92 Ye solemn seats of holy pain! 39 With penitential cries they kneel 93 Take me, cowl'd forms, and fence me round, 40 And wrestle; rising then, with bare 94 Till I possess my soul again; 41 And white uplifted faces stand, 95 Till free my thoughts before me roll, 42 Passing the Host from hand to hand; 96 Not chafed by hourly false control!

43 Each takes, and then his visage wan 97 For the world cries your faith is now 44 Is buried in his cowl once more. 98 But a dead time's exploded dream; 45 The cells!--the suffering Son of Man 99 My melancholy, sciolists say, 46 Upon the wall--the knee-worn floor-- 100 Is a pass'd mode, an outworn theme-- 47And where they sleep, that wooden bed, 101 As if the world had ever had 48Which shall their coffin be, when dead! 102 A faith, or sciolists been sad!

49 The library, where tract and tome 103 Ah, if it be pass'd, take away, 50 Not to feed priestly pride are there, 104 At least, the restlessness, the pain; 51 To hymn the conquering march of Rome, 105 Be man henceforth no more a prey 106 To these out-dated stings again! 160 And gay without frivolity. 107 The nobleness of grief is gone 161 Sons of the world, oh, speed those years; 108 Ah, leave us not the fret alone! 162 But, while we wait, allow our tears!

109 But--if you cannot give us ease-- 163 Allow them! We admire with awe 110 Last of the race of them who grieve 164 The exulting thunder of your race; 111 Here leave us to die out with these 165 You give the universe your law, 112 Last of the people who believe! 166 You triumph over time and space! 113 Silent, while years engrave the brow; 167 Your pride of life, your tireless powers, 114 Silent--the best are silent now. 168 We laud them, but they are not ours.

115 Achilles ponders in his tent, 169 We are like children rear'd in shade 116 The kings of modern thought are dumb, 170 Beneath some old-world abbey wall, 117 Silent they are though not content, 171 Forgotten in a forest-glade, 118 And wait to see the future come. 172 And secret from the eyes of all. 119 They have the grief men had of yore, 173 Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves, 120 But they contend and cry no more. 174 Their abbey, and its close of graves!

121 Our fathers water'd with their tears 175 But, where the road runs near the stream, 122 This sea of time whereon we sail, 176 Oft through the trees they catch a glance 123 Their voices were in all men's ears 177 Of passing troops in the sun's beam-- 124 We pass'd within their puissant hail. 178 Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance! 125 Still the same ocean round us raves, 179 Forth to the world those soldiers fare, 126 But we stand mute, and watch the waves. 180 To life, to cities, and to war!

127 For what avail'd it, all the noise 181 And through the wood, another way, 128 And outcry of the former men?-- 182 Faint bugle-notes from far are borne, 129 Say, have their sons achieved more joys, 183 Where hunters gather, staghounds bay, 130 Say, is life lighter now than then? 184 Round some fair forest-lodge at morn. 131 The sufferers died, they left their pain-- 185 Gay dames are there, in sylvan green; 132 The pangs which tortured them remain. 186 Laughter and cries--those notes between!

133 What helps it now, that Byron bore, 187 The banners flashing through the trees 134 With haughty scorn which mock'd the smart, 188 Make their blood dance and chain their eyes; 135 Through Europe to the Ætolian shore 189 That bugle-music on the breeze 136 The pageant of his bleeding heart? 190 Arrests them with a charm'd surprise. 137 That thousands counted every groan, 191 Banner by turns and bugle woo: 138 And Europe made his woe her own? 192 Ye shy recluses, follow too!

139 What boots it, Shelley! that the breeze 193 O children, what do ye reply?-- 140 Carried thy lovely wail away, 194 "Action and pleasure, will ye roam 141 Musical through Italian trees 195 Through these secluded dells to cry 142 Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay? 196 And call us?--but too late ye come! 143 Inheritors of thy distress 197 Too late for us your call ye blow, 144 Have restless hearts one throb the less? 198 Whose bent was taken long ago.

145 Or are we easier, to have read, 199 "Long since we pace this shadow'd nave; 146 O Obermann! the sad, stern page, 200 We watch those yellow tapers shine, 147 Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head 201 Emblems of hope over the grave, 148 From the fierce tempest of thine age 202 In the high altar's depth divine; 149 In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau, 203 The organ carries to our ear 150 Or chalets near the Alpine snow? 204 Its accents of another sphere.

151 Ye slumber in your silent grave!-- 205 "Fenced early in this cloistral round 152 The world, which for an idle day 206 Of reverie, of shade, of prayer, 153 Grace to your mood of sadness gave, 207 How should we grow in other ground? 154 Long since hath flung her weeds away. 208 How can we flower in foreign air? 155 The eternal trifler breaks your spell; 209 --Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease; 156 But we--we learned your lore too well! 210 And leave our desert to its peace!"

157 Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, 158 More fortunate, alas! than we, 159 Which without hardness will be sage, First publication date: 1855 RPO poem editor: H. Kerpneck http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/106.html RP edition: 3RP 3.238. Recent editing: 4:2001/12/13 Notes Form: six-line, iambic tetrameter stanzas 1] First published in Fraser's Magazine (April 1855). The Rhyme: ababcc Grande Chartreuse is the chief monastery of the Carthusians, situated in a wild and almost inaccessible valley, 4,000 feet Other poems by Matthew Arnold above the sea, not far from Grenoble in south-eastern France. Your comments and questions are welcomed. The Carthusians are submitted to an extremely ascetic All contents copyright © RPO Editors, Department of English, discipline. and University of Toronto Press 1994-2002 RPO is hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries 10] The Guier Mort is the stream on which Saint Laurentis situated.

42] the Host: the consecrated wafer or bread in the Christian sacrament of the mass or communion, either literally God's body (as in the Roman Catholic Church) or symbolically that (as in the Anglican Church).

83] carved with runes, letters of the early Norse alphabet.

99] sciolists: pretended scholars who have only superficial knowledge.

115] Newman, gently chided by Arnold in the analogy with Achilles, sulking in his tent before Troy and abstaining from combat. There is probably a sardonic reference here to the famous Achilli Trial (1851-53). Newman, in his Corn Exchange Lectures in 1851 (The Present Position of Catholics in England), relied only on the authority of an article by Cardinal Wiseman, savagely to impugn the character and veracity of Dr. Giacinto Achilli, an unfrocked Dominican, who was the hero of the No- Popery forces in England at this time. Newman was sued for libel, adjudged guilty, assigned a token sentence, and fined £100.

135] Missolonghi, where Bryon died, is on the Ætolian shore of the Gulf of Corinth.

142] Spezzian bay: on the west coast of Italy above Leghorn, where Shelley spent his last days.

146] Obermann: the title of a book by the French writer, Senancour (1770-1846); it consists of a collection of letters treating of nature and the human soul, and supposed to be written from Switzerland and Fontainebleau. Arnold says in his note to Stanzas in Memory of the Author of Obermann: "The stir of all the main forces, by which modern life is and has been impelled, lives in the letters of Obermann; the dissolving agencies of the eighteenth century, the fiery storm of the French Revolution, the first faint promise and dawn of that new world which our own time is but now fully bringing to light, --all these are to be felt, almost to be touched there."

Online text copyright © 2005, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto. Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Fraser's Magazine (London, 1832-82). AP 4 F8 ROBA