Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Masque of Anarchy

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Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou — let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
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!'

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number —
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
The old laws of England — they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo — Liberty!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
What is Freedom? — ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well —
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England — thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

Percy Bysshe Shelley