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. 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?" Here I may say that in Western countries from very ancient times it has been the custom to cover with flowers the road along which some great conqueror or other honoured person was to come. The ancients used especially roses and myrtles, but even to-day it is often the custom to throw flowers on the ground before the passing of a sovereign or other great person. "Like mad" is an idiom used to express extreme action of any sort; "to laugh like mad," would be to laugh unreasonably and extravagantly. The reference to the apparent movement of the roofs of the houses pictures the crowding of people on the house-tops to see the hero, a custom still kept up. And the reference to the effect of the bells as making "mist," indicates the excessive volume of sound; for it is said that the firing of cannon or the making of any other great noise will often cause rain to fall. The idea is that the people rang the bells so hard that the rain fell, and these were what we call "joy-bells." "If on that day of my triumph," he says, "I had asked them to give me the sun, they would have answered out of their hearts, Certainly--and what else?" Now it is very different indeed. 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. 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. 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.