The Patriot is Robert Browning’s one of the famous dramatic

monologues. Just as in the poems, My Last Duchess 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.