Dramatic Romances | Page 3

Regensburg), an ancient city
of Bavaria on the
right bank of the Danube, has endured
seventeen sieges since the
tenth century, the last one being that of Napoleon, 18O9.
II. Lannes: Duke of Montebello, one of Napoleon's generals.
THE PATRIOT
AN OLD STORY
I
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.
II
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
III
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.
IV
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
V
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.
VI
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
NOTES:
"The Patriot" is a hero's story of the reward and punishment
dealt him for his services within one year. To act
regardless of praise
or blame, save God's, seems safer.
MY LAST DUCHESS
Ferrara
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were
alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked
busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her?
I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you
that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by
the curtain I have
drawn for you, but I) 10 And seemed as they would ask me, if they
durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to
turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called
that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf
chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or
"Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies
along her throat"; such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause
enough 20 For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart--how shall
I say--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one!
My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for
her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace--all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 Or blush, at least.
She thanked men--good! but thanked
Somehow--I know not how--as
if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With

anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had
you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear
to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here
you miss,
Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let
Herself be
lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made
excuse,
E'en that would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to
stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who
passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that
no just pretence 50 Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his
fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll
go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse,
thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
NOTES:
"My Last Duchess" puts in the mouth of a Duke of Ferrara,

a typical husband and art patron of the Renaissance, a
description
of his last wife, whose happy nature and universal kindliness were a
perpetual affront to his exacting
self-predominance, and whose
suppression, by his command,
has made the vacancy he is now, in his
interview
with the envoy for a new match, taking precaution to fill

more acceptably.
3. Fra Pandolf, and 56. Claus of Innsbruck, are imaginary.
COUNT GISMOND
AIX lN PROVENCE
I
Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he

chose his post,
Chose time and place and