'Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came' by Robert Browning
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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
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
II.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who 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,
III.
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.
IV.
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out thro' 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.
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,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, (``since all is o'er,'' he saith,
``And the blow falIen no grieving can amend;'')
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.
VII.
Thus, 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 to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now---should I be fit?
VIII.
So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
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.
IX.
For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er 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 throve:
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. ``See
``Or shut your eyes,'' said nature peevishly,
``It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
``'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place,
``Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.''
XII.
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopped; 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.
XIII.
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 stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil's 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 woe;
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 fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards---the soldier's art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
XVI.
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
Beneath its 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.
Giles then, the soul of honour---there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.
Good---but the scene shifts---faugh! what hangman hands
Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!
XVIII.
Better this present than a past like that;
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
XIX.
A sudden little river crossed my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes.
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend's glowing hoof---to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
XX.
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of route 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 upon a dead man's cheek,
Each 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 shriek.
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 wage,
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
Soil 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 choose?
No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
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 tool, on earth left unaware,
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
XXV.
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood---
Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.
XXVI.
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
XXVII.
And just as far as ever from the end!
Nought in the distance but the evening, nought
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,
Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap---perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains---with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me,---solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
XXIX.
Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when---
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts---you're inside the den!
XXX.
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
XXXI.
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counter-part
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
XXXII.
Not see? because of night perhaps?---why, day
Came back again for that! before it left,
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,---
``Now stab and end the creature---to the heft!''
XXXIII.
Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,---
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet, each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
XXXIV.
There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. ``_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._''
Editor 1 Interpretation
Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came: A Masterpiece of Despair and Triumph
As one of the most celebrated and enigmatic poems of the Victorian era, Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" has inspired countless interpretations and analyses since its publication in 1855. Some critics have seen it as a meditation on the artist's quest for inspiration and meaning, while others have read it as a psychological allegory of the soul's journey through life, death, and rebirth. In this essay, I will argue that "Childe Roland" is both a literary tour de force and a profound commentary on the human condition, offering a vision of despair and triumph that transcends its historical context and speaks to readers across generations and cultures.
The Narrative Structure of "Childe Roland"
At first glance, "Childe Roland" appears to be a simple narrative poem, recounting the journey of a knight in search of a mysterious tower that he hopes will provide him with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. However, as the poem progresses, it becomes clear that the story is not linear but rather fragmented and discontinuous, with the protagonist's thoughts and emotions intermingling with his surroundings and his memories. This narrative technique, known as stream of consciousness, was pioneered by Browning's contemporary, James Joyce, and it allows the poem to convey the complex and contradictory nature of human experience.
The poem begins with a description of the barren and desolate landscape through which the knight, Childe Roland, is traveling. The imagery is bleak and foreboding, with "the blasted plain," "the yawning chasm," and "the stagnant tarn" evoking a sense of desolation and despair. Roland's horse is equally disillusioned, "flinching, like a creature who had damned himself to perdition" and refusing to go any further. This sense of hopelessness and futility is reinforced by the repetition of the phrase "and yet" throughout the poem, as if to emphasize the knight's sense of being trapped in an endless cycle of frustration and failure.
However, despite these obstacles, Roland persists in his journey, driven by a sense of duty and destiny. He is haunted by the memory of his companions, who have all fallen by the wayside, and by the vision of the dark tower, which seems to beckon him forward. The tower is described in vivid and surrealistic terms, as a place of mystery and terror that holds the key to Roland's ultimate fate. The tower is "blackened" and "blasted," with "stones of the wall" that are "crumbling." It is surrounded by a "weird glare" that seems to emanate from within, and by "phantoms" that "haunt the twilight." The tower is both a physical and a psychological barrier, representing the threshold between life and death, light and darkness, sanity and madness.
As Roland draws closer to the tower, his thoughts become more and more introspective, and the narrative becomes more fragmented and disjointed. He recalls his past exploits and his former companions, and he reflects on the meaning of his quest. He wonders if he is a hero or a fool, if he is seeking glory or oblivion. He questions the very existence of the tower, asking himself if it is real or a figment of his imagination. He acknowledges the futility of his quest, yet he continues to press forward, driven by a sense of purpose and determination.
As he reaches the foot of the tower, Roland is confronted by a series of obstacles and challenges, including a group of phantom creatures that seem to represent his own fears and doubts. He battles these creatures with a fierce and desperate resolve, using his sword and his wits to overcome them. He is wounded and battered, but he refuses to give up. Finally, he reaches the top of the tower, where he confronts the ultimate mystery of his existence.
Themes and Interpretations
The themes of "Childe Roland" are complex and multilayered, reflecting Browning's own preoccupations with the nature of identity, creativity, and mortality. One of the most prominent themes is the idea of the quest, and the search for meaning and purpose in a seemingly meaningless and chaotic world. Roland's journey is not just a physical one, but a psychological and spiritual one as well, as he confronts his own doubts and fears, as well as the obstacles that stand in his way.
Another theme that pervades the poem is the idea of despair and futility. Roland's journey is marked by a sense of hopelessness and resignation, as he struggles against the forces of nature and his own inner demons. The landscape through which he travels is barren and desolate, reflecting the emptiness and meaninglessness of his existence. The tower itself is a symbol of death and decay, representing the ultimate futility of human endeavor.
However, despite these bleak themes, the poem also contains elements of triumph and redemption. Roland's journey, while harrowing and difficult, ultimately leads him to a moment of enlightenment and transcendence. He reaches the top of the tower, where he confronts the mysteries of his own existence and achieves a sense of inner peace and acceptance. This moment of triumph is hard-won and bittersweet, but it represents a triumph of the human spirit over adversity and despair.
Conclusion
In conclusion, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a masterpiece of Victorian poetry that continues to resonate with readers today. Its complex narrative structure, vivid imagery, and themes of despair and triumph make it a profound commentary on the human condition, offering insights into the nature of identity, creativity, and mortality. While its meaning may be elusive and open to interpretation, its power and beauty are undeniable, making it one of the greatest poems of the English language. As Browning himself wrote, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?"
Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation
Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came: A Journey Through the Dark and Mysterious
Robert Browning's "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came" is a poem that takes the reader on a journey through the dark and mysterious. The poem is a narrative of a knight's journey to a dark tower, and it is filled with symbolism, metaphors, and allusions that make it a classic in English literature.
The poem begins with the narrator, who is the knight, describing his journey through a desolate landscape. The landscape is barren, and there is no sign of life. The knight is alone, and he is filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. He is on a quest to find the dark tower, but he does not know what he will find when he gets there.
The first stanza sets the tone for the rest of the poem. The knight is lost, and he is searching for something that he does not understand. He is filled with a sense of despair, and he wonders if he will ever find what he is looking for. The use of the word "lost" in the first line of the poem sets the tone for the rest of the poem. The knight is lost, and he is searching for something that he does not understand.
The second stanza introduces the idea of the dark tower. The knight has heard of the tower, but he does not know what it is or what it represents. The tower is a symbol of the unknown, and it represents the mystery that the knight is trying to unravel. The tower is also a symbol of the knight's own inner struggles. He is searching for something that he does not understand, and the tower represents the mystery that he is trying to solve.
The third stanza introduces the idea of the journey. The knight is on a journey, and he is searching for something that he does not understand. The journey is a metaphor for life, and it represents the struggles that we all face as we try to find our way in the world. The knight is on a quest, and he is searching for something that he does not understand. The journey is a metaphor for the human condition, and it represents the struggles that we all face as we try to find our way in the world.
The fourth stanza introduces the idea of the landscape. The landscape is barren, and there is no sign of life. The landscape is a metaphor for the knight's own inner struggles. He is lost, and he is searching for something that he does not understand. The landscape represents the emptiness that he feels inside.
The fifth stanza introduces the idea of the horn. The horn is a symbol of the knight's own inner strength. He blows the horn to announce his arrival, and it represents his determination to find the dark tower. The horn is also a symbol of the knight's own inner struggles. He is blowing the horn to announce his arrival, but he does not know what he will find when he gets there.
The sixth stanza introduces the idea of the companions. The knight meets three companions on his journey, and they represent the different aspects of his own personality. The first companion is the fool, and he represents the knight's own foolishness. The second companion is the coward, and he represents the knight's own fear. The third companion is the liar, and he represents the knight's own deceitfulness. The companions represent the different aspects of the knight's own personality, and they help him to understand himself better.
The seventh stanza introduces the idea of the darkness. The knight enters a dark forest, and he is filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. The darkness represents the unknown, and it represents the mystery that the knight is trying to unravel. The darkness is also a symbol of the knight's own inner struggles. He is searching for something that he does not understand, and the darkness represents the mystery that he is trying to solve.
The eighth stanza introduces the idea of the monsters. The knight encounters monsters on his journey, and they represent the different aspects of his own personality. The first monster is the serpent, and it represents the knight's own temptation. The second monster is the griffin, and it represents the knight's own pride. The third monster is the dragon, and it represents the knight's own anger. The monsters represent the different aspects of the knight's own personality, and they help him to understand himself better.
The ninth stanza introduces the idea of the tower. The knight finally arrives at the dark tower, and he is filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. The tower represents the unknown, and it represents the mystery that the knight is trying to unravel. The tower is also a symbol of the knight's own inner struggles. He is searching for something that he does not understand, and the tower represents the mystery that he is trying to solve.
The final stanza is the climax of the poem. The knight finally reaches the top of the tower, and he discovers that there is nothing there. The tower is empty, and there is no answer to the mystery that he has been trying to solve. The knight is filled with a sense of despair, and he wonders if his journey has been in vain. The final stanza is a metaphor for the human condition. We are all searching for something, but sometimes we never find it.
In conclusion, "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came" is a classic poem that takes the reader on a journey through the dark and mysterious. The poem is filled with symbolism, metaphors, and allusions that make it a classic in English literature. The poem is a metaphor for the human condition, and it represents the struggles that we all face as we try to find our way in the world. The poem is a reminder that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, and that sometimes we never find what we are looking for.
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