| |
| 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 |
| |
| 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?” |
10 |
| |
| 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. |
15 |
| |
| 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 |
| |
| 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 |
| |
| 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. |
