THE PATRIOT.
AN OLD STORY.
AN OLD STORY.
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 sunTo give it my loving friends to keep!Nought man could do, have I left undone:And you see my harvest, what I reapThis 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 oweMe?”—God might question; now instead,’Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
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 sunTo give it my loving friends to keep!Nought man could do, have I left undone:And you see my harvest, what I reapThis 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 oweMe?”—God might question; now instead,’Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
I.
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.
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.
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?”
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.
III.
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sunTo give it my loving friends to keep!Nought man could do, have I left undone:And you see my harvest, what I reapThis very day, now a year is run.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
VI.
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.
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.
The Patriot, on his way to the scaffold, surrounded by a hooting crowd, remembers how, just a year ago, the same people had been mad in their enthusiasm for him. Anything at all, however extravagant, would have been too little for them to do for him (stanza 2; cf. Gal. iv. 15, 16); but now——! The fourth stanza is very powerful. All have gone who can, to be ready to see the execution; only the “palsied few,” who cannot, are at the windows to see him pass. In the last stanza the thought of a more sudden contrast still is presented. A man may drop dead in the midst of a triumph, to find that in its brief plaudits he has his reward, while a vast account stands against him at the higher tribunal. Far better die amid the execrations of men and find the contrast reversed.
It is “an old story,” and therefore general; but one naturally thinks of such cases as Arnold of Brescia, or the tribune Rienzi. A higher Name than these need not be introduced here, in proof of the people’s fickleness!