I'll rim your rockrow, baby...

I have a concert this Sunday. And I have a confession to make -- a couple of the songs we're singing make no sense. The fact that they're in English doesn't help.

As an example, we're singing a setting of a poem by Robert Browning called "A Grammarian's Funeral". I've spent a lot of time trying to figure this one out, and I give up. So it's your turn now.

Right away, the title gives you trouble, because what the hell is a grammarian? Well, it's just what it sounds like, actually -- a teacher (i.e., of grammar, I guess). So, having worked that out, here are the first couple of lines:

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:

So far so good, right? They're leaving their farms and junk to carry the dude's corpse to the burial. Now here's where it gets crazy:

Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.

"Rimming the rock-row"? What the fuck does that mean? And why does it have that exclamation point? It sounds like some kind of slang for gay sex. There's no punctuation between the first two lines... are they supposed to be one sentence? "Look out if yonder be not day again rimming the rock-row!"? That makes even less sense. And what's this crap about man's thought breaking out and chafing in a censer? That's the little smoking ball-thing Catholic priests swing around,* right? What the hell's going on here?

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;

Ok, back to making sense, more or less. Bury the dude on top of a mountain. Although I'm not 100% sure what it means for a mountain to be "citied" or to be "crowded with culture", or why he feels the need to throw another exclamation point in there, but I've got enough of an idea to let that slide. And apparently, there's a really tall peak with clouds on it. Fine.

No! yonder sparkle is the citadel´s
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.

And we descend into madness again. What's with the "No!"? He was wrong in the last line? Clouds actually don't overcome it? And now there's a castle floating around the top of the mountain? Is the speaker on acid? And then he asks a question ... which doesn't get answered. What the hell does it even mean? Wait me what warning? And I guess the last couple of lines are supposed to be saying something about how this teacher was so awesome that our (i.e., those of us carrying his corpse) lives seem low and dark compared to his awesomeness. And, you know, morning/mourning. Cute.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.

Ok, this line actually makes more sense if you realize that "'ware" isn't actually a contraction for "beware" but instead "we are". Although it seems like the apostrophe should go after the W. And, you know, he could've just said "we're" instead. And again with the fucking exclamation points -- have you ever read that crappy comic strip "Mark Trail"? Everything the characters say either ends with an ellipsis or an exclamation point. This poem reminds me of that.

So, ideas? Comments? Help?

*Insert your own joke about Catholic priests and smoking ball-things.