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248 BYGONE SUSSEX. |
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"England in 1819," but Shelley was equal to the duty :—
" 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 Make 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."
This poem illustrates, too, another of Shelley's characteristics. He never loses hope, but has an unfailing faith in the ultimate triumph and of justice and righteousness— nay, so firm in his faith that he will not consent to Right adopting the methods of Wrong, and doing evil that good may come. Righteousness shall triumph by the inherent strength of sympathy and love and rule untainted either by force or fraud. Shelley was the friend of liberty alike in Greece and in Ireland ; he wanted to see it at home no less than " as far away as Paris is." Shelley's writings may still for |
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