Dramatic Romances

   The rain set early in to-night,
           The sullen wind was soon awake,
   It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
           And did its worst to vex the lake:
           I listened with heart fit to break.
   When glided in Porphyria; straight
           She shut the cold out and the storm,
   And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
           Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
           Which done, she rose, and from her form                10
   Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
           And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
   Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
           And, last, she sat down by my side
           And called me. When no voice replied,
   She put my arm about her waist,
           And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
   And all her yellow hair displaced,
           And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
           And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,                 20
   Murmuring how she loved me—she
           Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
   To set its struggling passion free
           From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
           And give herself to me for ever.
   But passion sometimes would prevail,
           Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
   A sudden thought of one so pale
           For love of her, and all in vain:
           So, she was come through wind and rain.                30

   Be sure I looked up at her eyes
           Happy and proud; at last I knew
   Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
           Made my heart swell, and still it grew
           While I debated what to do.
   That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
           Perfectly pure and good: I found
   A thing to do, and all her hair
           In one long yellow string I wound
           Three times her little throat around,                  40
   And strangled her.  No pain felt she;
           I am quite sure she felt no pain.
   As a shut bud that holds a bee,
           I warily oped her lids: again
           Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
   And I untightened next the tress
           About her neck; her cheek once more
   Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
           I propped her head up as before,
           Only, this time my shoulder bore                       50
   Her head, which droops upon it still:
           The smiling rosy little head,
   So glad it has its utmost will,
           That all it scorned at once is fled,
   And I, its love, am gained instead!
   Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
           Her darling one wish would be heard.
   And thus we sit together now,
           And all night long we have not stirred,
           And yet God has not said a word!                       60

   NOTES:
   "Porphyria's Lover" relates how, by strangling Porphyria
   with her own yellow hair, the lover seized and preserved
   the moment of perfect love when, pure and good, Porphyria
   left the world she could not forego for his sake,
   and came to him, for once conquered by her love.  A
   latent misgiving as to his action is intimated in the closing
   line of the poem.
           Remarking upon the fact that Browning removed the
   original title, "Madhouse Cells," which headed this poem,
   and "Johannes Agricola in Meditation," Mrs. Orr says:
   "Such a crime might be committed in a momentary
   aberration, or even intense excitement of feeling.  It is
   characterized here by a matter-of-fact simplicity, which is
   its sign of madness.  The distinction, however, is subtle;
   and we can easily guess why this and its companion poem
   did not retain their title.  A madness which is fit for
   dramatic treatment is not sufficiently removed from
   sanity."

   (See Edgar's song in "LEAR.")

   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,        10
   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     20
           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 fallen no grieving can amend");          30

   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           40
   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,             50
           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.         60

   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         70
   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,        80
           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.          90

   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         100
   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.                     110
           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 mute despair, a suicidal throng:
   The river which had done them all the wrong,
           Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.       120

   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                  130
   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,         140
           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.    150

   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
   A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,                  160
   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—          170
           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!            180

   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 counterpart
   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,                     190
   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                200
           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."

   NOTES:
   "Childe Roland" symbolizes the conquest of despair by fealty
   to the ideal. Browning emphatically disclaimed any precise
   allegorical intention in this poem.  He acknowledged
   only an ideal purport in which the significance of the
   whole, as suggesting a vision of life and the saving power
   of constancy, had its due place.  Certain picturesque
   materials which had made their impressions on the poet's
   mind contributed towards the building up of this realistic
   fantasy:  a tower he saw in the Carrara Mountains; a
   painting which caught his eye later in Paris; the figure of
   a horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room—welded
   together with the remembrance of the line cited from
   King Lear, iii. 4, 187, which last, it should be remembered,
   has a background of ballads and legend cycles
   of which a man like Browning was not unaware.  For
   allegorical schemes of the Poem see Nettleship's "Essays
   and Thoughts," and The Critic, Apr. 24, 1886; for an
   antidote to these, The Critic, May 8, 1886; an orthodox
   view, Poet-lore, Nov. 1890: for interpretations touching
   on the ballad sources, London Browning Society Papers,
   part iii. p. 21, and Poet-lore, Aug.-Sept. 1892.