Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 1/The Patriot
For works with similar titles, see The Patriot.
THE PATRIOT.
AN OLD STORY
1.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!
2.The air broke into a mist with bells,The old walls rocked with the crowds 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?"
3.Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,To give it my loving friends to keep.Nought man could do, have I left undoneAnd you see my harvest, what I reapThis very day, now a year is run.
4.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.
5.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.
6.Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go!In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead."Thou, paid by the World,—what dost thou oweMe?"–God might have questioned: but now instead'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so.