Question

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?"

Read the above lines and answer the question that follow.

Explain with reference to the context.

Answer 1

This is stanza has been taken from the poem Patriot into Traitor” written by Robert Browning.This poem is a criticism of politics and people’s opinion. When a leader comes into power, people call him a patriot. When he is dethroned,-the same leader is considered a traitor. This is the tragedy of modern politics. The leader in this poem fell a victim to the same state of affairs. When he came into power, people showered flowers at him as a patriot. But after a year, they declared him a traitor, when he was no more in power. They took him to the gallows. But Browning has ended his poem not on a tragic, rather on a next world optimistic note.
When the people were given him a warm welcome they rang bells and raised slogans. These different voices mingled with one another and produced a sort of music.The air became misty and heavy because of the noisy slogans and the ringing bells. The slogans of the crowd were so heavy and loud that the adjacent walls of the road-side houses trembled with various cries and noise of the crowd. These people were welcoming him so happily that if he had told them that mere noise and slogans did not please him. And that they should give him the sun, that is there in the sky far away from them , they would have replied, that was executed (done and what else they could do for him ‘the leader’.