Robert Browning's 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

There’s a story. A bemused reader asked Browning what this poem meant. ‘Well,’ said the poet, ‘when I wrote it only God and Robert Browning knew. Now only God knows.’

Sadly this conversation didn’t take place, and the comment was most likely made by a character called Robert Browning in a play. But it’s worth keeping in mind. There’s nothing wrong with worrying about ‘what it means’ but a better question with this poem is what does it do to you while you hear it or read it. What do the images suggest, the words evoke? Go along for the ride and experience the story before you start worrying about what it means.

The irrational came into English Literature at the end of the 18th Century with the first wave of Gothic literature. It was given substance in English poetry by Coleridge, and you can trace it through the 19th century. Browning’s Childe Roland and Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market are two of the finest examples.

Stephen’s King ‘Dark Tower’ series ostensibly begins as a riff on this poem. But if you want a version, then Louise MacNeice’s play ‘The Dark Tower’ does a better job of capturing the spirit of the original.

from Mathew Francis' 'The Mabinogi' Rhiannon's arrival

Mathew Francis ( Born 1956)

Rhiannon: ‘a woman wearing a shining garment of brocaded silk on a big, fine, pale white horse’..

This extract is taken from ‘The Mabinogi’, (Faber 2017), Francis’ retelling of the first four stories in the collection of eleven Medieval Welsh prose stories printed in English as The Mabinogion. The Mabinogi is the name given to the first four stories.

In this extract from the first story, Pwyll, who is prince of Dyfed, has been told that if he sits on Gorsedd Arberth, a hill overlooking his court, one of two things will happen: wounds or blows, or he will see a wonder. Because he is with an armed retinue he isn’t worried about being struck and wounded. As they sit on the hill, they see a rider approaching.

Although she seems to be ambling past, the boy sent to run after her cannot catch her. On the second day Pwyll sends a rider. No matter how fast threader drives his horse, she increases the gap between them without changing her pace.

On the third day Pwyll himself tries to catch her, and is failing miserably when he asks her to stop.

Gladly she says, and it would have been better for your horse if you’d asked a lot sooner.

Francis’ poem is not a translation, but a retelling that stays close to the original. But he captures the dreamlike quality of the original, and suggests that what we’re reading is both event and metaphor.

You can read a brief discussion the whole book here: here

(Clicking on the link will take you to a page on WWW.Liamguilar.com).

If you want to read a prose version of The Mabinogion in modern English, Sioned Davis’ version for Oxford World Classics (2008/2018) is justifiably famous.

from Christopher Logue's 'War Music' 2. The Death of Patroculus.

Christopher Logue (1926-2011)

This is my second reading from ‘War Music’. In the first, Patroculus has begged Achilles for the loan of his armour. When Achilles reluctantly agrees, he insists that no matter how successful Patroculus is he must not chase the Trojans to their city. Apollo, the Mouse God, is present and on the Trojan’s side.

After a day of staggering success, Patroculus ignores the interdiction and chases the Trojans to the walls of their city. This extract begins as he tries to scale the walls of Troy.

from Christopher Logue's 'War Music'. 1 Patroculus pleads with Achilles.

Christopher Logue (1926-2011)

A fine poet in his own work, Logue’s most lasting achievement should be his ‘account’ of Homer’s Iliad.

Logue never called his work a translation. In 1959 he was asked to translate a section of the Iliad for a radio performance.  In his memoire, ‘Prince Charming’ (p.221), he relates that when he pointed out he knew no Greek, he was told:. ‘Read translations by those who did. Follow the story. A translator must know one language well. Preferably his own.’ It is an unusual piece of advice, and not one usually given to translators.

The results however were spectacular, appearing as separate books, until in 2016 they were collected and published as ‘War Music; an account of Homer’s illiad’. I would describe it as one of the great narrative achievements in English Poetry.

Although neither finished nor pedantically ‘accurate’, it makes Homer seem attractive. However, as an introduction to Homer its one drawback is that it makes the standard translations of the Iliad seem very dull.

Ovid's 'Pygmalion' trans Arthur Golding

Arthur Golding (1536-1605)

Publius Ovidius Naso (43 Bc-17/18 AD)

Ovid’s ‘Metamorphosis’ written in Latin in the first decade of the First Century AD, long before England was invented, is ironically one of the key texts in English poetry and Ovid one of its most influential poets. One of the reasons for the popularity of the Metamorphosis after the Middle Ages is Golding’s translation, which influenced so many who read it, including one W. Shakespeare.

The story of Pygmalion lives on in Shaw’s play and the musical version of Shaw’s play, and nothing makes it any less disturbing. It also lives on in ‘The Pygmalion effect’, the idea that high expectations in management or teaching can lead to enhanced results because of the ‘self fulfilling prophecy’.

Whatever the leadership gurus make of it, like most of Ovid’s stories, it’s disturbing. But then you’ve probably met at least one deluded person who recreated a human being as an unrealistic ideal and you might have been unlucky enough to be around to see the damage that caused.

Lewis Carroll's 'The Walrus and the Carpenter'.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

‘Light verse’ is often a dismissive term. Light verse can be clever, witty, humorous, entertaining, memorable and enjoyable but Real poetry should be serious, profound, ‘deep’, emotional….it’s a silly argument. Some of the best poetry of the 19th century is described as ‘light verse’, and Lewis Carroll wrote some of the best examples.

Almost as silly as the dismissal of light verse is the inevitable attempt to find political, religious or ideological themes that would raise it to the level of ‘serious poetry’.

It is what it is.

John Keats' 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'

John Keats (1795-1821)

John Keats

In Tennyson’s Lady of Shalotte, the metaphor is buried by the story. In La Belle Dame sans Merci, the story is the metaphor. The narrative is as straightforward as a fairy tale, though it also reads like a nightmare.

 There are several suggestions as to what the story ‘means’: La Belle Dame is tuberculosis, Infatuation, Fanny Brawne, male fear of the feminine. You can take your pick.

What Keats thought it meant is a different matter.  The poem first appeared in a long letter he wrote to George and Georgina Keats.

At the end of the poem he wrote:

Why four kisses-you will say-why four because I wish to restrain the headlong impetuosity of my Muse-she would have fain said ‘score’ without hurting the rhyme-but we must temper the Imagination as the Critics say with Judgement. I was obliged to choose an even number that both eyes have fair play: and to speak truly I think two a piece quite sufficient-suppose I had said seven: there would have been three and a half a piece-a very awkward affair, and well got out of on my side- 

Which doesn’t sound like he was taking it or himself too seriously.

The poem is also a candidate for the prize for worst editing of a poem by the person who wrote it. When Keats published the poem in The Indicator, he changed the first line to: 

Ah what can ail thee wretched wight…

Which is awful.  His defenders claim that by this time his illness was so advanced his judgement was impaired.

The poem, even more than the Lady of Shalotte, appealed to painters in the 19th century.

Thomas E. Spencer's 'How McDougall topped the score'

Thomas E. Spencer (1845-1911)

I know nothing about Spenser except he wrote this poem and I own a signed, 1906 copy of ‘How McDougall Topped the Score and other sketches and verses’. I don’t even know why I have the book.

According to Wikipedia Spencer migrated to Sydney, Australia in 1875 and became a successful builder and contractor, winning government contracts for work on Goulburn gaol, the University of Sydney's physics laboratory and the sewerage system in Sydney.

‘How McDougall Topped the Score’ is a fine example of a recognisable type of Australian poem from the first half of the last century. An entertaining story, not meant to be taken seriously, but enjoyed for the pleasure of the thing itself. It’s also very enjoyable to read aloud.

Alfred Lord Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott'

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The Lady of Shalott by George Edward Robertson

Another poem in which the poet has taken a story and adapted it.

Tennyson was a great poet, if technique is a criteria of greatness. Try writing stanzas using the rhythm and rhyme scheme he does here and see how hard it is. He doesn’t put a foot wrong if you pronounce glow’d/trode/flow’d/rode to rhyme.

There’s a sung version by Loreena Mckennit which brings out how melodious the lyric is far better than any reading can.

But being a great technician is not everything and for all the memorable lines, there’s something unpleasant about the story which is characteristic of Tennyson’s treatment of Arthurian material in general and the women in it in particular.

You are almost compelled to read the poem as a metaphor because as a story about people, even people in a fantasy pseudo-medieval world of magic, it doesn’t work unlike Keats’ ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. The poem asks to be understood in a symbolic fashion. But precisely what is symbolised isn’t clear and attempts to naturalise it, one essay on the web claims ‘she freezes to death as she floats down the river’, emphasise how unreal it is.

it’s not irrelevant that so many male painters in the 19th century liked painting dead women or that this particular story was so attractive to them. (Do a google image and you’ll see how popular the subject was.)

There are two versions of the poem. One published in 1833, one in 1842. The earlier poem has an extra verse and ends:

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,
  Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.
   There lay a parchment on her breast,
   That puzzled more than all the rest,
                 The wellfed wits at Camelot.
     'The web was woven curiously,
      The charm is broken utterly,
       Draw near and fear not,—this is I,
                 The Lady of Shalott.'

which is awful and a tribute to Tennyson that he cut it.

Although it may not have been his source, it’s revealing to compare this poem to Malory’s story of Elayne of Ascolat. The comparison illuminates the limitations of Tennyson’s version. Tennyson may have been a great technician, but Malory was great.

Liam Guilar's 'More than a broken token song'

I am a life long devotee of the ‘Traditional folk song’. This poem is dedicated, without irony, ‘For the Ballad singers, with gratitude and affection.’

But I don’t like Broken Token Songs, even if some of them have the best tunes.

In this particular sub set of the folk genre, a girl, we shall call her Sweet Dotty, is usually walking in her garden, or down by a river, when a stranger arrives and propositions her. She says she is waiting for Sweet William to return from the wars, or from sea, or wherever he’s been these last seven years, and she will be faithful to his memory. Having told the girl various lies, the stranger then reveals himself as the missing William. They produce their ‘broken tokens’ and live happily ever after.

The back story here is that before Sweet William went off to the war, set sail to make his fortune or was press ganged, he and Dotty broke a token, a ring or a coin, in two and each kept a half, so that when the battered and disfigured male returned he could prove who he was.

What I don’t like about broken token songs is the implication that it’s ok for the guy to have gone off and had all sorts of adventures but the girl must remain chaste and true. I know this goes back to the Odyssey and I know it’s cultural, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. So I wrote my own version.

If you don’t see the man in the door’s stories and language as utterly inappropriate, and see what that suggests about him, then I can’t help you. This poem is published in ‘Rough Spun To Close Weave’ by Ginninderra press. Available from all online sellers, details at www.liamguilar.com

Liam Guilar's 'My Grandmother's story'

Liam Guilar

The most frightening stories I’ve ever heard were told around the table by my English Grandmother and my Irish Father. There was no attempt to ‘be frightening. They both believed in the truth of the stories they were telling.

This one scared me most because it didn’t finish. It seemed to be all detail and no story. Years later, when I remembered to ask her what was under the floorboards, the answer was long and involved and didn’t seem to belong to this story.

The poem is taken from ‘Rough Spun to Close Weave’ (Ginninderra press 2012). You can find other samples from the book at www.liamguilar.com.

Rudyard Kipling's 'Gunga Din'.

Rudyard Kipling (I865-1936)

‘You’re a better man than I am Gunga Din’.

I heard this phrase so often when I was growing up, it was years before I found out that it was part of a poem. Even then, the repetition of the phrase obscured the correct pronunciation and I was slow to realise the name was pronounced Deen not Din.

Perhaps like ‘Lead on MacDuff’, or ‘Him who asks no questions isn’t told no lies’ the phrase had come untethered from its context and was being used by people who didn’t know where it came from.

‘Though I’ve belted you and flayed you
By the living God that made you
You’re a better man than I am Gunga Din’

It’s hard to imagine words locked more securely into a poem’s rhythm.

And if you think Kipling’s Tommy is a racist, I think you’re missing the point of the story.

I've been rereading poems that were common knowledge when I was growing up. This is the last of that group.

Alfred Noyes' 'The Highwayman'.

Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

File under poems that are enjoyable to read aloud?

I wonder how many children have had this poem inflicted on them by English teachers who have used it to teach ‘similes and metaphors’. Now, draw the moon as a ghostly galleon…Now find a simile and draw that..

Stripped down to its narrative bones it has the lack of sentiment of a traditional ballad. The Jealous Lover gets rid of his rival and in so doing causes the death of the woman he desires. Bess kills herself to save the Highwayman, but he dies anyway. Everybody loses. And like the central character in a good ghost story, the Highwayman keeps his promise, even though he’s dead.

It lacks the stripped down austerity of a genuine ballad, and the long vowel sounds ring false. Moon is repeated so often it begins to sound like a herd of cows in a paddock.

It's been set to music many times and if you’ve never heard it sung, Andy Irvine does a good version.

This is taken from ‘Poems and Ballads’ (1927).

John Keats' 'The Eve of Saint Agnes'

John Keats (1795-1821)

Given what’s acceptable today, it’s difficult to imagine how shocking this poem was when it was being written.

It almost lead to a falling out between Keats and his Publisher.  John Taylor, who was convinced Keats was a genius, had stood with him despite the financial failure of Endymion, But he was shocked by the goings on in Madeline’s chamber. After all, they are not married!  He didn’t like the last verse either. He wanted Keats to change the poem so that it wouldn’t shock his (female) readership or give hostile critics a new stick with which to beat Keats.

This lead Keats to write:

‘‘I shall ever consider them (people) as debtors to me for verses, not myself to them for admiration-which I can do without’.

For someone who was trying to make a living as a poet it was an untenable position. For a publisher investing in a writer it was too self destructive to be acceptable.

The argument was smoothed over. Changes that made the ‘solution sweet’ more explicit were dropped.

I’ve always thought this poem is like a play where the characters are not as believable as the setting and the props.

Gerald of Wales 'Three stories from The Journey through Wales'.

Gerald of Wales (1145-1223)

My versions of three stories Gerald tells in ‘The Journey through Wales’. These are published in ‘A Presentment of Englishry’ (Shearsman 2019)

Gerald of Wales, or Gerald the Welshman (1145-1223), is one of the more fascinating characters of the twelfth century. A highly-educated, nobly born cleric, he made a career out of annoying people. He lectured Kings and Prelates undeterred by the fact they weren’t listening to him and he was witty, curious and an insatiable collector of stories. His ‘The Journey through Wales’, written in Latin Prose, can be read for pleasure, partly because Gerald takes breaks from telling the reader how brilliant he is, and how wrong everyone else is, to tell stories like these. 

The first ‘The scene of sorrows’ is a brutal miny tragedy, the second baffling, the third quietly humorous. They are curious artefacts from the past, to turn over and consider.

These poems first appeared as ‘Three Poems by Gerald of Wales’ in a translation special edition of ‘The High Window’.

Anon: 'Dom Niperi Septoe' or 'The Dairy Maid'.

I first heard Seamus Ennis tell this on the LP ‘Forty Years of Irish Piping’ where it serves as an elaborate introduction to ‘The Smoky House’ reel. It’s a strange story. It could be going anywhere, including towards something nasty, but when it gets to its extraordinary ending, it feels as though it could not have gone anywhere else.

It also dictates its own pronunciation which is also strange.

It’s printed in Ciaran Carson’s magnificent ‘Last Night’s Fun’, which is a book riding the same immaginative currents Ennis was sailing on. It is the only book I’ve ever read that captures what it’s like to play traditional music.

The printed version has a tail that reads:

Now, I knew that little girl years later
said Seamus Ennis,
and whenever we’d be playing music
we’d have to be careful
not to play ‘The Smoky House’.
Becuase if we did, she’d run a mile.
So we never played it,
after we found out that she was allergic
to this reel.
He took up a whistle and he played a reel he called ‘The Smoky House’ or ‘Whatever you Please’.

Robert Service's 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew'.

This is from ‘Songs of a Sourdough’. Robert Service made his name writing poems about the Yukon Goldrush in the 1890s. ‘The shooting of Dan McGrew’ is best heard around a campfiire, or in a mini bus stuck in a snow storm. Best recited from memory.

Service was once very popular, especially with people who ‘didn’t like poetry’: these days he may be almost forgotten.