Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came painted by Thomas Moran in 1859.

Badly wounded in battle and knowing himself to be at the point of death, Childe Roland pounds on the door of an ancient tower surrounded by a lonely marsh, believing it the portal to death and the final resting place for dead heroes and royalty. He is determined to join them. But a girl with red hair and a dark girl dressed in a gray robe bar the way.

PROGRAM NOTE: First published in the Yale Literary Magazine in 1919, Wilder's senior year, Childe Roland has long been a subject for writers and artists, from Shakespeare to Robert Browning to Stephen King and his Dark Tower. Wilder's title is drawn from Shakespeare's "Child Rowland to the dark tower came," a line from a Scottish ballad used in Act III, Scene 4 of King Lear, and also used by Robert Browning as the title for one of his best-known poems. Wilder's description of the sunset over the marsh evokes some of the details of artist Thomas Moran's oil painting by the same name which appeared in 1859. And can we not see a hint of Our Town in the Dark Girl's line: "You gave us such little thought while living that we have made this little delay at your death"?