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.
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 ? "Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do, have I left undone: And you see my harvest, what I reapThis very day, now a year is run.
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.
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.
Thus I entered, and thus I go.
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Paid by the world, what dost thou oweMe ? " God might question; now instead, "Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
Robert Browning.
Author.-Robert Browning (1812-1889), one of the greatest of modern English poets. Though he is not famous as a dramatist, the plays Luria, A Blot in the "Scutcheon, and The Return of the Druses have some intensely dramatic scenes. Pippa Passes, In a Gondola, and In a Balcony contain some great lyric and tragic notes. But Men and Women, Dramatis Person?, and The Ring and the Book represent the finest flower of Browning"s achievement. What other short poems of his do you know ?
General Notes.-A true patriot is one who so loves his country that his one desire is for her sake to give, not to get. The true patriot oftensuffers, for " the kingliest kings are crowned with thorn. " Again, the mob is fickle, as appears in the poem. Browning"s patriot need not be any particular historical personage; he is a type of all those who have loved and served and suffered in what seemed to be a great cause. Two pictures are given-the first of the mob"s adulation, the second of the mob"s execration. Contrast the roses, myrtle, flags, bells, hurrahs of the one with the rope, stones, scaffold of the other. What interval of time separates them ? What is the patriot"s dying consolation? Can you find real examples in history, ancient or modern?