The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

4. Perhaps alluding to conflicts in Arnold's own It was established in 1084 by Saint Bruno, founder time such as occurred during the revolutions of of the Carthusians (line 30), whose austere regi1848 in Europe, or at the Siege of Rome by the men of solitary contemplation, fasting, and reli- French in 1849 (the poem's date of composition is gious exercises (lines 37�44) had remained unknown, although generally assumed to be virtually unchanged for centuries. Arnold visited 1851). But the passage also refers back to another the site on September 7, 1851, accompanied by his battle, one that occurred more than two thousand bride. His account may be compared with that by years earlier when an Athenian army was attempt-William Wordsworth (Prelude [1850] 6.414-88), ing an invasion of Sicily at nighttime. As this "night who had made a similar visit in 1790. battle" was described by the ancient Greek histo-2. The Guiers Mort River flows down from the rian Thucydides in his History of the Pelopottnesian monastery and joins the Guiers Vif in the valley War (7.44). the invaders became confused by dark-below; in French, Mort and Vif mean "dead" and ness and slaughtered many of their own men. "alive," respectively. Wordsworth speaks of the two Hence "ignorant armies." rivers as "the sister streams of Life and Death." 1. A monastery situated high in the French Alps.

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137 0 / MATTHEW ARNOLD

For rest in this outbuilding near;

Then cross the sward and reach that gate.

Knock; pass the wicket!0 Thou art come gate

so To the Carthusians' world-famed home. The silent courts, where night and day

Into their stone-carved basins cold

The splashing icy fountains play�

The humid corridors behold!

35 Where, ghostlike in the deepening night,

Cowled forms brush by in gleaming white. The chapel, where no organ's peal

Invests the stern and naked prayer�

With penitential cries they kneel

40 And wrestle; rising then, with bare

And white uplifted faces stand,

Passing the Host from hand to hand;3

Each takes, and then his visage wan

Is buried in his cowl once more.

45 The cells!�the suffering Son of Man

Upon the wall�the knee-worn floor�

And where they sleep, that wooden bed,

Which shall their coffin be, when dead!4

The library, where tract and tome

50 Not to feed priestly pride are there,

To hymn the conquering march of Rome,

Nor yet to amuse, as ours are!

They paint of souls the inner strife,

Their drops of blood, their death in life. 55 The garden, overgrown�yet mild,

See, fragrant herbs5 are flowering there!

Strong children of the Alpine wild

Whose culture is the brethren's care;

Of human tasks their only one,

so And cheerful works beneath the sun. Those halls, too, destined to contain

Each its own pilgrim-host of old,

From England, Germany, or Spain�

All are before me! I behold

65 The House, the Brotherhood austere!

�And what am I, that I am here?

3. Arnold, during his short visit, may not actually kneels rather than stands). have witnessed Mass in the monastery. During the 4. A Carthusian is buried on a wooden plank but service the consecrated wafer ("the Host") is not does not sleep in a coffin. passed from the hand of the officiating priest to 5. From which the liqueur Chartreuse is manuthe hands of the communicant (as is the practice factured. Sales of this liqueur provide the principal in Arnold's own Anglican Church) but is placed revenues for the monastery's upkeep. directly on the tongue of the communicant (who

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STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE / 1371

For rigorous teachers seized my youth,

And purged its faith, and trimmed its fire,

Showed me the high, white star of Truth,

70 There bade me gaze, and there aspire.

Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:

What dost thou in this living tomb?

Forgive me, masters of the mind!6

At whose behest I long ago

75 So much unlearnt, so much resigned�

I come not here to be your foe!

I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,7

To curse and to deny your truth;

Not as their friend, or child, I speak!

so But as, on some far northern strand,

Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek

In pity and mournful awe might stand

Before some fallen Runic stone8�

For both were faiths, and both are gone. ss Wandering between two worlds, one dead,

The other powerless to be born,

With nowhere yet to rest my head,

Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.

Their faith, my tears, the world deride�

90 I come to shed them at their side. Oh, hide me in your gloom profound,

Ye solemn seats of holy pain!

Take me, cowled forms, and fence me round,

Till I possess my soul again;

95 Till free my thoughts before me roll,

Not chafed by hourly false control!

For the world cries your faith is now

But a dead time's exploded dream;

My melancholy, sciolists9 say,

IOO Is a passed mode, an outworn theme�

As if the world had ever had

A faith, or sciolists been sad!

Ah, if it be passed, take away,

At least, the restlessness, the pain;

105 Be man henceforth no more a prey

To these out-dated stings again!