Robert Browning 
The Dramatic Romances 

AN OLD STORYIIt 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.IIThe 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?’IIIAlack, 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.IVThere’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……..