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!