The Patriot

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1. It was roses, roses, all the way,
2. With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.
3. The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
4. The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
5. A year ago on this very day!
6.  
7. The air broke into a mist with bells,
8. The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries.
9. Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels–
10. But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
11. They had answered, "And afterward, what else?"
12.  
13. Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,
14. To give it my loving friends to keep.
15. Nought man could do, have I left undone
16. And you see my harvest, what I reap
17. This very day, now a year is run.
18.  
19. There's nobody on the house-tops now–
20. Just a palsied few at the windows set—
21. For the best of the sight is, all allow,
22. At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,
23. By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
24.  
25. I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
26. A rope cuts both my wrists behind,
27. And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
28. For they fling, whoever has a mind,
29. Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
30.  
31. Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go!
32. In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
33. "Thou, paid by the World,—what dost thou owe
34. Me?"–God might have questioned: but now instead
35. 'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so.