"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (See Edgar's song in Lear Browning 1855: Original Text Reference. Composition Date: Jan. 1852. Publication Date: 1855. Ed. (text): F. E. L. Priestley; (e-text): I. Lancashire. Rep. Poetry: 3RP.3.146. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 My first thought was, he lied in every word, 2 That hoary cripple, with malicious eye 3 Askance to watch the working of his lie 4 On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford 5 Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored 6 Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. 7 What else should he be set for, with his staff? 8 What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare 9 All travellers who might find him posted there, 10 And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh 11 Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph 12 For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, 13 If at his counsel I should turn aside 14 Into that ominous tract which, all agree, 15 Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 16 I did turn as he pointed: neither pride 17 Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, 18 So much as gladness that some end might be. 19 For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, 20 What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope 21 Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope 22 With that obstreperous joy success would bring, 23 I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring 24 My heart made, finding failure in its scope. 25 As when a sick man very near to death 26 Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end 27 The tears and takes the farewell of each friend, 28 And hears one bid the other go, draw breath 29 Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith, 30 "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend";) 31 While some discuss if near the other graves 32 Be room enough for this, and when a day 33 Suits best for carrying the corpse away, 34 With care about the banners, scarves and staves: 35 And still the man hears all, and only craves 36 He may not shame such tender love and stay. 37 Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, 38 Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ 39 So many times among "The Band"--to wit, 40 The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 41 Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best, 42 And all the doubt was now--should I be fit? 43 So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, 44 That hateful cripple, out of his highway 45 Into the path he pointed. All the day 46 Had been a dreary one at best, and dim 47 Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim 48 Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. 49 For mark! no sooner was I fairly found 50 Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 51 Than, pausing to throw backward a last view 52 O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round: 53 Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. 54 I might go on; nought else remained to do. 55 So, on I went. I think I never saw 56 Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: 57 For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove! 58 But cockle, spurge, according to their law 59 Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, 60 You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove. 61 No! penury, inertness and grimace, 62 In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See 63 Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, 64 "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: 65 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 66 Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free." 67 If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk 68 Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents 69 Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents 70 In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk 71 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk 72 Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. 73 As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair 74 In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud 75 Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. 76 One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, 77 Stood stupefied, however he came there: 78 Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! 79 Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, 80 With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 81 And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; 82 Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; 83 I never saw a brute I hated so; 84 He must be wicked to deserve such pain. 85 I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. 86 As a man calls for wine before he fights, 87 I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, 88 Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. 89 Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art: 90 One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 91 Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face 92 Beneath its garniture of curly gold, 93 Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold 94 An arm in mine to fix me to the place 95 That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! 96 Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. 97 Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands 98 Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. 99 What honest men should dare (he said) he durst. 100 Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands 101 In to his breast a parchment? His own bands 102 Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! 103 Better this present than a past like that; 104 Back therefore to my darkening path again! 105 No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. 106 Will the night send a howlet or a bat? 107 I asked: when something on the dismal flat 108 Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. 109 A sudden little river crossed my path 110 As unexpected as a serpent comes. 111 No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; 112 This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath 113 For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath 114 Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. 115 So petty yet so spiteful! All along 116 Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; 117 Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit 118 Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: 119 The river which had done them all the wrong, 120 Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 121 Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared 122 To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, 123 Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek 124 For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! 125 --It may have been a water-rat I speared, 126 But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. 127 Glad was I when I reached the other bank. 128 Now for a better country. Vain presage! 129 Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, 130 Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 131 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, 132 Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage-- 133 The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. 134 What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? 135 No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, 136 None out of it. Mad brewage set to work 137 Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk 138 Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. 139 And more than that--a furlong on--why, there! 140 What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, 141 Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel 142 Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air 143 Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, 144 Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. 145 Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, 146 Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth 147 Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, 148 Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood 149 Changes and off he goes!) within a rood-- 150 Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. 151 Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, 152 Now patches where some leanness of the soil's 153 Broke into moss or substances like boils; 154 Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him 155 Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim 156 Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. 157 And just as far as ever from the end! 158 Nought in the distance but the evening, nought 159 To point my footstep further! At the thought, 160 A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, 161 Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned 162 That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought. 163 For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 164 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place 165 All round to mountains--with such name to grace 166 Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. 167 How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you! 168 How to get from them was no clearer case. 169 Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick 170 Of mischief happened to me, God knows when-- 171 In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, 172 Progress this way. When, in the very nick 173 Of giving up, one time more, came a click 174 As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den! 175 Burningly it came on me all at once, 176 This was the place! those two hills on the right, 177 Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; 178 While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce, 179 Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, 180 After a life spent training for the sight! 181 What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? 182 The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart 183 Built of brown stone, without a counterpart 184 In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf 185 Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf 186 He strikes on, only when the timbers start. 187 Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day 188 Came back again for that! before it left, 189 The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: 190 The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay 191 Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,-- 192 "Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!" 193 Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled 194 Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears 195 Of all the lost adventurers my peers,-- 196 How such a one was strong, and such was bold, 197 And such was fortunate, yet each of old 198 Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. 199 There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met 200 To view the last of me, a living frame 201 For one more picture! in a sheet of flame 202 I saw them and I knew them all. And yet 203 Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, 204 And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." Credits and Copyright Together with the editors, the Department of English (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press, the following individuals share copyright for the work that went into this edition: Screen Design (Electronic Edition): Sian Meikle (University of Toronto Library) Scanning: Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)