The Patriot: An Old Story
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t 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 owe Me? "--God might question; now instead,'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
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