Percy Bysshe Shelley

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despis'd, 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 starv'd and stabb'd in the untill'd field,

An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edg'd sword to all who wield,

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,

Religion Christless, Godless--a book seal'd,

A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepeal'd,

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

The Mask of Anarchy: 

Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester [Peterloo 1819]

As I lay asleep in Italy

There came a voice from over the Sea,

And with great power it forth led me

To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way--

He had a mask like Castlereagh--

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven blood-hounds followed him:

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight,                        

For one by one, and two by two,

Tossed them human hearts to chew

Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,

Like Eldon, an ermined gown;

His big tears, for he wept well,

Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who

Round his feet played to and fro,

Thinking every tear a gem,                     

Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,

And the shadows of the night,

Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy

On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played

In this ghastly masquerade,

All disguised, even to the eyes,

Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

Last came Anarchy: he rode                      

On a white horse, splashed with blood;

He was pale even to the lips,

Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;

And in his grasp a sceptre shone;

On his brow this mark I saw--

'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'  

Notes:

Castlereagh was Foreign Secretary; Sidmouth was Home Secretary (minister for the interior); Eldon was Lord Chancellor (head of the legal and judicial system)