Would break, what crutch 'gin? write my epitaph would begin to
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
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
.
'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
