Hey, I have to do a poetry critisim report on this poem.. i do not understand it though. I want to say that it has something to do with the Underground Railroad, but Im not too sure she would write about that. If you know anything will you please post back or email me??

OES the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.




-Katherine.. Thankz!!

Since Christina was not American, I do not think that she is writing about the underground railroad. But she is certainly talking about salvation from the hardships of life on the road. There is some more information here:

[www.cs.rice.edu]

Les

It's the journey to salvation- heaven if you like. It's the same theme as the novel Pilgrim's Progress.

Since the work was first published in 1862, it probably wasn't used as an 'Underground Railroad' song.

pam

Well, I have a bit of opinion on this poem and heregoes...

This poem, seemingly a series of questions by a traveler and the answers by one who has traveled, is a lovely and moving meditation on death(the bed where one"rests in peace") and its relation to life(the road travelled on). Each answer given by the secondary speaker builds on the sense of inevitability that the young traveler must reach this particular destination --in fact, he cannot avoid it: You cannot miss that inn. More interesting, though, than this sense of the inevitability of death is the sense that death is not to be feared; we are instead to find comfort and solace in death. Rossetti employs imagery throughout the poem implying that death is a welcome refuge after a long, hard journey. It is the world that is to be feared and turned from, in the end. Death will provide a roof and an inn, and there will be comradery in the welcome we find by Those who have gone before. Life, Rossetti tells us, is a long journey, lasting "From morn to night", and death is not an end to be feared but a rest to be earned and welcomed. The juxtaposition of fatalism and optimism fascinates.

Another interesting question about this work is: Who is the second speaker, the person giving the answers? At first glance, we suspect someone old and weary at life, precisely the kind of person who would welcome death. But there are another possibilities: that the Answerer is actually himself one of the dead, who is telling someone soon to die not to be fearful. Or perhaps it is even God, seeking to reassure a fearful worshipper.

it was very good for me find this place with all these comments because i needed to do an essay about this poem and at the begining it was a little difficult to me to understand the up-hill, i`m from chile and i just wanted to tell you that you were a kind of salvation to me.

bye
maritza