" CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"#ROBERT BROWNING
( I)
My first thought was,he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple,with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine,and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
It's edge,at one more victim gained thereby.
π (ii)
With else should he be set for,with his staff?
What,save to waylay with his lies,ensnare
All travellers that might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break,what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare ,
3(iii)
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which,all agree,
Hide the Dark Tower . Yet acquiescing
I did turn as he pointed;neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried.
So much as gladness that some end might be.
4(iv)
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out thro'. Years,my __
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made,finding failure in its scope
175 5(v)
As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed,and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
Abs hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside,("since all is o'er,he saith,
" And the blow fallen no grieving can amend ";)
6(vi)
While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this,and when a day suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners,scarves and staves,--
And still the man hears all,and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
7(vii)
This,I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft,been writ
So many times among. "The Band ! "--to wit,
The knights who to the Dark tower's search addressed
Their steps-- that just yo fail as they,seemed best,
And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?
8(viii)
So ,quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hate cripple,out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was setting to it's close,yet shot one grim
Red leee to see the plain catch it's estray.
9(ix)
For mark! No sooner was I fairly found pledged to the plan,after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last viewing
To the safe road, 'twas gone;grey plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; nought else remained to do
(X)
So,on I went.i think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature;nothing thrive;
For flowers -- as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle,spurge, according to their law might propagate their kind,with none to awe,you'd think;a burr had been a treasure-trove.
(Xi)
No! Penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion.
Or shut your eyes,". Saud nature peevishly,
"It nothing skulls: I cannot help my case:
Tis the last judgement's fire must cure this place,
Calcine it's clods and set my prisoners free."
(Xii)
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above it's mates,the head was chooped--the bents
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves--bruised as to baulk
All hope of greenness? Tis a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.
(Xii)
As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy;thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
One stuff blind horse,his every bond a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devils stud!
(Xiv)
Alive?he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red,gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane:
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such wor!
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
(Xv)
I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier,happier sights,
Ere fiflyi could hope to play my part.
Think first,fight afterwards --the soldier's art:
I d taste of the old time sets all to rights !
(xvi)
Not it ! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
Beneath it's garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm in mine to fix me to the place,
That way he used. Alas! One night's disgrace!
Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.
(Xvii)
Guess then, the soul of honour --there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
What honest men should dare (he said) he durst.
Stood--bur the scene shifts--faugh ! What hangman hands
To his breast a parchment? His own bands read it. Poor traitor,spit upon and curst !
(Xviii)
This present than a past like that:
Therefore to my darkening path again !
Sound ,no sight as far as eye could strain.tht night send a howlet or a bat?
When something on the dismal flat
To arrest my thoughts and change their train
Xix)
Little river crossed my path
Disrespected as a serpent comes.
Enugish
(Xx)
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng :
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate'er that was,rolled by, deterred no whit.
(Xxi)
Which, while I forded,--good saints,how I feared
To set my foot up one a dead man's cheek,
Wacg step,or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard !
--it may have been a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! It sounded like a baby's shrick
(Xxii)
Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage !
Who were the strugglers,what war did they wafe,
Whose savage trample this could pad the dank
Soul to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--
(Xxiii)
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.
What penned them there, with all the plain to chose
No footprint leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains,no doubt,like galkey-slaves the turn
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
(Xxiv)
And more than that--a furlong on--why,there
What bad use was that engine for,that wheel
Or brake,not wheel--that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? With all the air
Of tophet's took,on earth left unaware,
Or brought to sharpen it's rusty teeth of steek