The Patriot | Robert Browning

About the Poet

        Robert Browning (1812-1889), a Victorian poet, is famous for his romantic monologues which are penetrating studies of personality as well as vigorous poetry. His 'The Ring and the Book' explores the human mind by telling the same story twelve times, each time from the point of view of a different character.

About the Poem

        A patriot is a person who loves, supports and defends, and, if need be, dies for his country. He is loved, admired and even worshipped by the public as long as he is found useful. But the public is fickle. The moment 'the patriot' losses its favour, he is discarded and consigned to the dust bin. Browning has given two contrasting pictures of 'the patriot' - from being a hero once, to now being a persona non grata. The account here is in the words of the hero himself and he succeeds in conveying his agitated state of mind.

The Patriot

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 !

Nought 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 does thou owe

Me?' - God might question; now instead,

'Tis God shall repay ! I am safer so.