 | The bird and the bell, with other poems |  |
321
I.
THE DARK TOWER.
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.”
What then?The poet paints a mystery weird and dark,
Full of foreboding. Bones and corpses stark,
On blighted moorland and in rotting fen,
Under the knight's adventurous feet protrude.
Voices like gusts of wind, warning and taunt,
Stun his bewildered ears. The sunset slant
Shows the Black Tower against a sky of blood.
The hills like gloomy giants watch to see
His fall, as others fell. He dauntless blows
His horn, and fights, and tells the tale. So he
Who our grim tower of slavery overthrows
Shall well inspire our future minstrel's strain,
True son of knighthood, Roland come again.
| The bird and the bell, with other poems | |