1. Browning stated that this poem "came upon me nightmarelike as in 20th-century writings such as as a kind of dream," and that it was written in one T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" (1925) or Franz day. Although the poem was among those of his Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" (1919). own writings that pleased him most, he was reluc-The lines from Shakespeare's King Lear 3.4 tant to explain what the dream (or nightmare) sig-(lines 1 58�60), from which the title is taken, are nified. He once agreed with a friend's suggestion spoken when Lear is about to enter a hovel on the that the meaning might be expressed in the state-heath, and Edgar, feigning madness, chants the ment: "He that endureth to the end shall be saved" fragment of a song reminiscent of quests and chal( cf. Matthew 24.13). Most readers have responded lenges in fairy tales: "Child Roland to the dark to the poem in this way, finding in the story of tower come, / His word was still, 'Fie, fo, and fum; Roland's quest an inspiring expression of defiance / I smell the blood of a British man." "Childe": a and courage. Other readers find that the poem youth of gentle birth, usually a candidate for expresses despair more than enduring hope, and it knighthood. is at least true that the landscape is as grim and
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"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" / 1267
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
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
20 What with my search drawn out through years, my hope
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.
5
25 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,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith, 30 "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend"),
6
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:2
35 And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay.
7
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among "The Band"�to wit,
40 The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps�that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now�should I be fit?
8
So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
45 Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.3
9
For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
50 Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; naught else remained to do.
2. The trappings of an imagined funeral. 3. Literally, a domestic animal that has strayed away from its home.
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1268 / ROBERT BROWNING
27
55 So, on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers�as well expect a cedar grove! But, cockle, spurge,4 according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
60 You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.
11
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, "It nothing skills:5 I cannot help my case;
65 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
Calcine6 its clods and set my prisoners free."
12
If there pushed any ragged thistle stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents7
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents 70 In the dock's0 harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk coarse plant All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing0 their life out, with a brute's intents. smashing
T3 As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
75 Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!
14
Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, so With that red gaunt and colloped0 neck a-strain, ridgedAnd shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
15
85 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 fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards�the soldier's art:
90 One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
16
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,