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Fedic

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  3. Posted · Report reply

    Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

    Robert Browning

    My first thought was, he lied in every word,

    That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

    Askance to watch the workings 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,

    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

    Now 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 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.

    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 bit the other go, draw breath

    Freelier outside, ('since all is o'er,' he saith

    And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;')

    VI

    When 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

    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,

    Than, pausing to throw backwards 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, naught 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.

    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 Judgement'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

    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 stupified, however he came there:

    Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

    XIV

    Alive? he might be dead for aught I knew,

    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain.

    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.

    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 to mine to fix me to the place,

    The 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

    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.

    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.

    XXI

    Which, while I forded - good saints, how I feared

    To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,

    Each step, of 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

    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 footprint 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,

    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.

    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!

    Naught in the distance but the evening, naught

    To point my footstep further! At the thought,

    A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend,

    Sailed past, not best 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 recognise some trick

    Of mischief happened to me, God knows when -

    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!

    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,

    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 hillsides, met

    To view the last of me, a living frame

    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.'

    Pchan reacted to this

  9. Posted · Report reply

    fewww. I was worried Sessy's tet was going to break up (Scarlet Field) You really know how to throw a mental curve ball woman :P

    Sesshomaru and Misha... well I had to eat some ice cream after that scene ;)

    Yes, I love that Odoku tortured Inuyasha in such a way and that he wanted to kill the mortals after the battle was done. The guy was fuckin crazy! Let me guess... Gasher? Trashcan Man? A little of both? ;)

    Sesshomaru and Inyasha at the end was great too. They were finally "being brothers". I like how the busting down of Sesshomaru's emotional walls was very natural. Its still Sesshomaru, he just has new wants and needs, but his approach is direct as always and in character. Sesshomaru wants what he wants and gets what he wants. Misha was perfect for him.

    Christmas in Central Park...

    eeeek! I see what you mean about Roland on your mind. The whole Suz+Mordred ala Misha and Sesshomaru considering killing the baby. Very Roland (too bad old Ro didn't do it in the Calla) I see how Sesshomaru is still hesitant right up until the bitter end. Seeing your species become extinct is a big thing, no wonder he considered killing the kid. I'm so glad he didn't do it though. He couldn't do that to Misha because she was too in his heart! Sesshomaru was still completely in character even though he was a totaly changed man :happy:

    Ladywriter reacted to this

  13. Posted · Report reply

    The Rin scenes are really cute, when she cried for Misha mama it was so sad :( All of the characters seem to be ic, even when you're "changing" them. I see how Sesshomaru is becoming more like his father, so his father gets his wish after all ;) The bad guys are great. I love having at least one crazy bastard in a story (Odoku) and Azuki just seems plain evil. I felt so bad for poor Misha :( good thing Sessy was there to make her feel all better :P I like how the tet you're working with has become so close to each other. I like the Sessy Rin interaction. You can really tell how much he loves her and how well he understands her. The fight on the beach was great "Your head is next" very Sessy indeed.

    So..

    how did you come up w the o.c.'s and whats up with the Kingisms? char-u tree and dan-dhin are pretty obvious, but what about the poor unfortunate creatures that don't know SK's stuff.

    I'll guess the underlying theme is adapt or die? I want to hear what the english lit proffesor and the shrink in your head think of the story :meh:

    edit: I don't see anything wrong with the love scene. It's squeeky clean compared to some of the stuff I have written :P

    Ladywriter reacted to this

  15. Posted · Report reply

    New episodes of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica premiere on July 15 as SCI FI Fridays return.

    Stargate SG-1 returns for a ninth season with new cast members Ben Browder (Farscape), Emmy winner Beau Bridges, Oscar winner Lou Gossett Jr. and former The X-Files star Mitch Pileggi. Bridges will also appear in several episodes of Stargate Atlantis. Gossett and Browder's Farscape co-star Claudia Black join the cast of SG-1 in recurring roles, and former Baywatch star Jason Momoa joins the cast of Stargate Atlantis.

    Battlestar Galactica comes back for a second season, with the entire ensemble cast returning: Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. Also resuming their roles are executive producer and writer Ronald D. Moore and executive producer David Eick.

    http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=2&id=31033

    sweet! Chriton and Erin ^_^;

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