An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,--
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,--
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,--
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,--
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed;
A Senate,--Time's worst statute unrepealed,--
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.
not much has changed! the day after thatcher died has much changed One down!
the reason I love to read Shelley is the honesty in which he wrote a real challange to all that was wrong with the world. & still is
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
A great and bold poem narrating the tumultuous and dispairing conditions prevailing in England during 1819. Thanks for sharing it here.