Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/464

426 Where that wet smoke, among the woods,

Over his boiling caldron broods.

Swift rush the spectral vapors white

Past limestone scars with ragged pines,

Showing—then blotting from our sight!—

Halt—through the cloud-drift something shines!

High in the valley, wet and drear,

The huts of Courrerie appear.

Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher

Mounts up the stony forest-way.

At last the encircling trees retire;

Look! through the showery twilight gray,

What pointed roofs are these advance?

A palace of the kings of France?

Approach, for what we seek is here!

Alight, and sparely sup, and wait

For rest in this outbuilding near;

Then cross the sward, and reach that gate;

Knock; pass the wicket. Thou art come

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,

Where, ghost-like 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

And wrestle; rising then, with bare

And white uplifted faces stand,

Passing the Host from hand to hand;