Rocky blocks, of size gigantic,
All-misshapen and distorted,
Gaze upon me like fierce monsters
Turn’d to stone, from times primeval.
Strange the sight! Grey clouds are hov’ring
High above me, like their double;
They’re the pallid counterfeit
Of those wild and stony figures.
In the distance roars the streamlet,
And the wind howls through the fir-trees;
’Tis a noise inexorable,
And as wretched as despair.
Solitude most terrible!
Troops of jackdaws black are sitting
On the batter’d crumbling fir-trees,
Fluttering with their lame wings strangely.
Close beside me goes Lascaro,
Pale and silent,—I myself, too,
Looking like incarnate madness,
With grim death as my companion.
Wild and wretched is the country;
Lies it ’neath a curse? Methinks I
On the roots of yonder stunted
Tree can marks of blood discover.
It o’ershadoweth a cottage,
Which is modestly half-hidden
In the earth; with meek entreaty
Seems its thatch to gaze upon thee.
They who this poor cot inhabit
Are Cagots,[31] surviving relics
Of a race that deep in darkness
Lives a sad despised existence.
In the hearts of the Biscayans
Still is rooted fast the loathing
Of Cagots, dark heritage
From dark days of superstition.
In Bagnères cathedral even
Is a narrow grated entrance;
This, the sacristan inform’d me,
Was the door Cagots went in at.