Sonnet: England in 1819

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



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 tempestuous day.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
177

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABABCDCDCCDD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 646
Words 114
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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    "Sonnet: England in 1819" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29239/sonnet:-england-in-1819>.

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