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.
.
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,
4. A bitter-juiced weed. 'Cockle': a weed that 6. Turn to powder by heat. bears burrs. 7. Coarse stiff grasses. 5. I.e., it is no use.
.
'CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' / 126 9
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.
