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 reap This 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 owe Me?" -- God might question; now instead, T is God shall repay: I am safer so. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MAYFLOWER [DECEMBER 21, 1620] by ERASTUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 65. AL-WAJID by EDWIN ARNOLD IN A LETTER TO A.R.C. ON HER WISHING TO BE CALLED ANNA by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS |