Patriot, The

Robert Browning

AN OLD STORY.

	I.

It was roses, roses, all the way,
  With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
  The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

	II.

The air broke into a mist with bells,
  The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, ``Good folk, mere noise repels---
  But give me your sun from yonder skies!''
They had answered, ``And afterward, what else?''

	III.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
  To give it my loving friends to keep!
Nought man could do, have I left undone:
  And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

	IV.

There's nobody on the house-tops now---
  Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
  At the Shambles' Gate---or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

	V.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
  A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
  For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

	VI.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!
  In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
``Paid  by  the  world,  what  dost  thou   owe
  ``Me?''---God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer  so.

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