  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 housetops 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.30 |
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