THE PATRIOT.
Reading edition
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! 5
II.
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?” 10
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. 15
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. 20
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. 25
VI.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead;
“Thou, paid by the world,—what dost thou owe
Me?” God might question: now instead
’Tis God shall repay! I am safer so. 30