Chapter XVII: Canto XV

Hulking and enormous cliffs
Of deformed and twisted shapes
Look on me like petrified
Monsters of primeval times.

Strange! the dingy clouds above
Drift like doubles bred of mist,
Like some silly counterfeit
Of these savage shapes of stone.

In the distance roars the fall;
Through the fir trees howls the wind!
'Tis a sound implacable
And as fatal as despair.

Lone and dreadful lies the waste
And the black daws sit in swarms
On the bleached and rotten pines,
Flapping with their weary wings.

At my side Lascaro strides
Pale and silent--I myself
Must like sorry madness look
By dire Death accompanied.

'Tis a wild and desert place.
Curst perchance? I seem to see
On the crippled roots of yonder
Tree a crimson smear of blood.

This tree shades a little hut
Cowering humbly in the earth,
And the wretched roof of thatch
Pleads for pity in your sight.

Cagots are the denizens
Of this hut--the last remains
Of a tribe which sunk in darkness
Bides its bitter destiny.

In the heart of every Basque
You will find a rooted hate
Of the Cagots. 'Tis a foul
Relic of the days of faith.

In the minster at Bagnères
You may see a narrow grille,
Once the door, the sexton told me,
Which the herded Cagots used.

In that day all other gates
Were forbidden them. They crawled
Like to thieves into the blest
House of God to worship there.

There these wretched beings sat
On their lowly stools and prayed,
Parted as by leprosy,
From all other worshippers.

But the hallowed lamps of this
Later century burn bright,
And their light destroys the black
Shadows of that cruel age!

While Lascaro waited there,
Entered I the lonely hut
Of the Cagot, and I clasped
Straight his hand in brotherhood.

Likewise did I kiss his child
Which unto the shrivelled breast
Of his wife clung fast and sucked
Like some spider sick and starved.