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 leechlike to their fainting country cling



Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.



A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;



An army, whom 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.





