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
.
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,
