Childe Donald to the Dark Tower Came

Giorgio de Chirico, The Nostalgia of the Infinite (1912–13)

So, you despise me, Mr Gigadibs.

No deprecation, – nay, I beg you, sir !

— Browning

The laborer is worthy of his hire,

Though does he get it if that’s really true

As liberal platitudes require? But

No point questioning the choir:

Too many cooks spoil the confounded stew!

We fit our lives into the blighted day,

Confirming what the crackpot hours desire,

Renounce the old—and flabbergast the new!

Envoi

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides – 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 Donald to the Dark Tower came.”

With apologies to Robert Browning, author of this Envoi, aside from one tiny change.

Fumito Ueda, cover image for the European and Japanese versions of the video game Ico (2001)

Flagrante Delicto, Thursday, October 9, 2025