sonnet

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 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 days.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "England in 1819"