Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792–1822)
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king6—
Princes, the dregs of their dull race,7 who flow
Through public scorn—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow;
A people starved and stabbed in the unfilled field—
An army, which liberticide8 and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws9 which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A Senate—Time's worst statute1 unrepealed—
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom2 may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
1839