Analysis of England in 1819

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



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.


Scheme ABABABCDCDCCDD
Poetic Form
Metre 1111010101 1001111111 1101110101 1011011111 1111110101 1111010101 0101010011 1101101 1101111111 1001011101 010110011 01011101 11110100101 1111011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 655
Words 114
Sentences 2
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 496
Words per stanza (avg) 104
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 06, 2023

34 sec read
129

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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