free-verse37 lines
The Patriot
by Robert BrowningAN 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 Brescia, and thus I go!
In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
'Paid by the World, what dost thou owe
Me?' God might question: but now instead,
'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so.