Fine Analysis · Follow
4 min read · Apr 13, 2018
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The Patriot is Robert Browning’s one of the famous dramatic monologues. Just as in the poems, My Last duch*ess or The Last Ride Together in this poem the poet uses a single speaker. In this poem The Patriot, Browning presents a patriot to talks about the change of his fortune within a single year.
As the poem begins, the speaker recalls his memories of this very day just one year ago. Even he says that he was welcomed victoriously by his countrymen. The citizens of his country decorated the path with roses and myrtles to welcome him. In fact, they crowded on the roofs of the houses to see the speaker for once. And also the churches sway their flags to welcome 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.
In the second stanza, the speaker continues that even that day the air was filled with cheerful sounds of bells. Moreover, he describes that thousands of people crowded against the old walls of the houses. They even cheered and cried out for their hero that is, the speaker. So, the port remembers that he had even promised them to bring the sun for them. Here, the poet metaphorically uses the sun to denote that the speaker was even ready to do any insuperable deed for his countrymen.
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?”
But in the third stanza, the speaker admits that he was fool enough to try to achieve beyond his limit. In fact, the praises of the countrymen made him too confident to become over-ambitious. Here Browning metaphorically alludes to mythical Icarus. Icarus received his downfall when he became too ambitious to fly towards the sun with his wax wings. Similarly, just like Icarus, the speaker is going to face his downfall which he now realizes after a year.
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.
Hence, now the speaker shows the difference in the attitude of the countrymen towards him after a year. He tells that now there is no one on the roofs of the houses along the road to welcome him. However, he can see a few people sitting beside the windows of the houses, they are actually diseased and weak. So, they are not there for the speaker. Rather, the speaker even ironically says now all the people have gathered near the Shambles’ Gate. Actually, the speaker is being taken to the Shambles’ Gate for executing him. So, all the citizens, who once welcomed him as a patriot, now wait by the scaffold the see the speaker’s execution.
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.
In addition to this, the speaker describes his present pathetic plight. He says people are dragging him vigorously. Even both his wrists are bleeding due to the rope that ties them. Also, he feels that someone from the crowd throws a stone towards him and his forehead starts bleeding. He regrets that a year’s misdeed has erased all the memories of his good deeds from the minds of the common people.
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.
So, in the concluding stanza, he tries to gather some hope in such a painful state. He says that he has played his role and so, now he has to leave. Here again, Browning projects a philosophical truth of life that Shakespeare too has mentioned in his play As You Like It. The same idea is used by Shakespeare in the speech:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances… (Act II, Scene VII, As You Like It)
Even, on the verge of his death, he consoles his soul that he may get his reward in heaven. Though his countrymen have failed to pay the required respect to him, he hopes to get it in God’s company.
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.
So, to conclude, though this poem shows the uncertainty of one’s life and fortune, it ends on an optimistic note.
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Originally published at fineanalysis.site on April 13, 2018.
