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10.0
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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.
Robert Browning
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Read poems about / on: house, sun, rain, people, god, world, friend, rose, running, sky
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Comments about this poem (The Patriot
by
Robert Browning
) |
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comments about this poem (The Patriot by
Robert Browning
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Stephen Holbrook-sishton
(12/20/2009 5:41:00 PM) |
'The Patriot' is about how the mighty fall after a period of exhilerating popularity. In a sense it is the experience of most celebs nowadays. One minute you're the very best the next - yesterday's news, only in Browning's case he's talking about a patriot. The crowds are behaving differently to the ones a year ago. Before, they were worshipping, now they're waiting for his execution. The patriots who fit the bill are many, JC included. A poem for all time.
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Robert Browning
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