{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/stanzas-composed-at-carnac",
 "title": "Stanzas Composed at Carnac",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Poems",
 "book_slug": "new-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1867,
  "venue": "New Poems (1867)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoems00arno"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/matthew-arnold_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 33,
    "was": "Ah! where is he, who should have come39",
    "now": "Ah! where is he, who should have come",
    "why": "A Standard Ebooks endnote marker (<a epub:type=\"noteref\">) carried into the text by extraction; not present on the printed page.",
    "checked_against": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
    "date": "2026-08-12"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Far on its rocky knoll descried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saint Michael’s chapel cuts the sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I climb’d;⁠—beneath me, bright and wide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay the lone coast of Brittany.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bright in the sunset, weird and still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It lay beside the Atlantic wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though the wizard Merlin’s will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet charm’d it from his forest grave.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Behind me on their grassy sweep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearded with lichen, scrawl’d and grey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The giant stones of Carnac sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the mild evening of the May.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No priestly stern procession now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moves through their rows of pillars old;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No victims bleed, no Druids bow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From bush to bush the cuckoo flies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The orchis red gleams everywhere;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gold broom with furze in blossom vies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bluebells perfume all the air.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And o’er the glistening, lonely land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rise up, all round, the Christian spires.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The church of Carnac, by the strand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Catches the westering sun’s last fires.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And there across the watery way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See, low above the tide at flood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sickle-sweep of Quiberon bay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And beyond that, the Atlantic wide!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All round, no soul, no boat, no hail!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, on the horizon’s verge descried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hangs, touch’d with light, one snowy sail!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah! where is he, who should have come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where that far sail is passing now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Past the Loire’s mouth, and by the foam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Finistère’s unquiet brow,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Home, round into the English wave?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He tarries where the Rock of Spain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mediterranean waters lave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He enters not the Atlantic main.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, could he once have reach’d this air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freshen’d by plunging tides, by showers!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have felt this breath he loved, of fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cool northern fields, and grass, and flowers!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He long’d for it⁠—press’d on!⁠—In vain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the Straits fail’d that spirit brave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The South was parent of his pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The South is mistress of his grave.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}