The Patriot - Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May, 1812 - 12 Dec, 1889) was an English poet and playwright who started writing at an early age. Some of his famoure poem include: "My Last Duchess", "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", "Porphyria's Lover", "Hilde Roland to the Dark Tower", "The Lost Leader", "Meeting at Night", "Fra Lippo Lippi", and "The Laboratory". "The Ring and the Book" and "Dramatis Personae" earned him a spot in the circle of Victorian poets in the year 1869.
The Patriot - Central Idea of the Poem
Narrated in a first-person account, the Patriot has an ironic tone. The irony in the poem being that the people who had, in the beginning, welcomed him with flowers are the ones who stone him and hang him within the span of a year. The poet reflects back upon the days when he was welcomed with rose-laden paths but by the end of the poem, we see that those some people humiliated and executed him within a year. This shows that glory and fortune donot last forever. People are fickle-minded and change their opinions without a second thought. The poem is majorly based on the theme of rising and fall of fortune. Thus we see that with the turn of a year, the scenario changes. There are no more flages fluttering or bells ringing but empty housetops. Only a palsied few linger near their windows otherwise the place is completely deserted. The final stanza has the Patriot being optimistic about death as he believes that God does justice to one and all, and He will recognize that the Patriot ahs done nothing immoral. This faith in God and the belief that he will be safe in God's abode shows that a patriot is a religious man.
Betrayal is also a minor theme in the poem as the poet fetched the sun for his countrymen and in return, they stamped him as a criminal and executed him. All his good deeds were forgotten and he was brought to a humiliating and painful death.