'Sonnet: England in 1819'

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.

 	-- Percy Bysshe Shelley