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 Si 
 
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DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Treasure "Room 
 
 -^vV f 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
THE 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY, 
 
 a pent. 
 
 BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED, WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Hope is strong ; 
 Justice and Truth their winged child have found . 
 
 Revolt of Islam. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET. 
 1832. 
 
toft 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This Poem was written by Mr. Shelley on 
 occasion of the bloodshed at Manchester, in the 
 year 1819. I was editor of the Examiner at 
 that time, and it was sent to me to be inserted 
 or not in that journal, as I thought fit. I did 
 not insert it, because I thought that the public 
 at large had not become sufficiently discern- 
 ing to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heart- 
 edness of the spirit that walked in this flaming 
 robe of verse. His charity was avowedly more 
 than proportionate to his indignation ; yet 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 I thought that even the suffering part of the 
 people, judging, not unnaturally, from their own 
 feelings, and from the exasperation which suf- 
 fering produces before it produces knowledge, 
 would believe a hundred-fold in his anger, to 
 what they would in his good intention ; and this 
 made me fear that the common enemy would 
 take advantage of the mistake to do them both a 
 disservice. Mr. Shelley's writings have since 
 aided the general progress of knowledge in 
 bringing about a wiser period ; and an effusion, 
 which would have got him cruelly misrepresented 
 a few years back, will now do unequivocal 
 honour to his memory, and shew every body 
 what a most considerate and kind, as well 
 as fervent heart, the cause of the world has 
 lost. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 The poem, though written purposely in a lax 
 and familiar measure, is highly characteristical of 
 the author. It has the usual ardour of his tone, 
 the unbounded sensibility by which he combines 
 the most domestic with the most remote and fan- 
 ciful images, and the patience, so beautifully 
 checking, and, in fact, produced by, the extreme 
 impatience of his moral feeling. His patience 
 is the deposit of many impatiences, acting upon 
 an equal measure of understanding and moral 
 taste. His wisdom is the wisdom of a heart 
 overcharged with sensibility, acquiring the pro- 
 foundest notions of justice from the completest 
 sympathy, and at once taking refuge from its 
 pain, and working out its extremest purposes, in 
 the adoption of a stubborn and loving fortitude 
 
 which neutralizes resistance. His very strokes 
 b 2 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 of humour, while they startle with their ex- 
 travagance and even ghastliness, cut to the heart 
 with pathos. The fourth and fifth stanzas, for 
 instance, of this Poem, involve an allusion, which 
 becomes affecting from our knowing what he 
 must have felt when he wrote it. It is to his 
 children, who were taken from him by the late 
 Lord Chancellor, under that preposterous law, 
 by which every succeeding age might be made 
 to blush for the tortures inflicted on the opinions 
 of its predecessor. 
 
 " Anarchy the Skeleton," riding through the 
 streets, and grinning and bowing on each side 
 of him, 
 
 As well as if his education 
 
 Had cost ten millions to the nation, 
 
 is another instance of the union of ludicrousness 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 with terror. Hope, looking " more like De- 
 spair," and laying herself down before his horses' 
 feet to die, is a touching image. The descrip- 
 tion of the rise and growth of the Public En- 
 lightenment, 
 
 upborne on wings whose grain 
 
 Was as the light of sunny rain, 
 and producing " thoughts " as he went, 
 As stars from night's loose hair are shaken, 
 
 till on a sudden the prostrate multitude look up, 
 
 and ankle-deep in blood, 
 Hope, that maiden most serene, 
 Was walking with a quiet mien, 
 
 is rich with the author's usual treasure of 
 imagery and splendid words. The sixty-third 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 is a delicious stanza, producing a most happy 
 and comforting picture in the midst of visions of 
 blood and tumult. We see the light from its cot- 
 tage window. The substantial blessings of Free- 
 dom are nobly described ; and lastly, the advice 
 given by the poet, the great national measure 
 recommended by him, is singularly striking as 
 a political anticipation. It advises what has since 
 taken place, and what was felt by the grown 
 wisdom of the age to be the only thing which 
 could take place, with effect, as a final rebuke and 
 nullification of the Tories ; to wit, a calm, lawful, 
 and inflexible preparation for resistance in the 
 shape of a protesting multitude, — the few 
 against the many, — the laborious and suffering 
 against the spoilt children of monopoly, — Man- 
 kind against Tory-kind. It is true the Poet 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 recommends that there should be no active 
 resistance, come what might ; which is a piece of 
 fortitude, however effective, which we believe 
 was not contemplated by the Political Unions : 
 yet, in point of the spirit of the thing, the 
 success he anticipates has actually occurred, and 
 after his very fashion; for there really has 
 been no resistance, except by multitudinous pro- 
 test. The Tories, however desirous they showed 
 themselves to draw their swords, did not draw 
 them. The battle was won without a blow. 
 
 Mr. Shelley's countrymen know how anxious 
 he was for the advancement of the common good, 
 but they have yet to become acquainted with 
 his anxiety in behalf of this particular means of 
 it — Reform. The first time I heard from him, 
 was upon the subject : it was before I knew him, 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 and while he was a student at Oxford, in the year 
 1811. So early did he begin his career of phi- 
 lanthropy ! Mankind, and their interests, were 
 scarcely ever out of his thoughts. It was a 
 moot point when he entered your room, whether 
 he would begin with some half-pleasant, half- 
 pensive joke, or quote something Greek, or ask 
 some question about public affairs. I remem- 
 ber his coming upon me when I had not seen 
 him for a long time ; and after grappling my hands 
 with both his, in his usual fervent manner, sitting 
 down, and looking at me very earnestly, with a 
 deep though not melancholy interest in his face. 
 We were sitting in a cottage study with our 
 knees to the fire, to which we had been getting 
 nearer and nearer in the comfort of finding 
 ourselves together; the pleasure of seeing him 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 was my only feeling at the moment ; and the air 
 of domesticity about us was so complete, that I 
 thought he was going to speak of some family 
 matter— either his or my own; when he asked 
 me, at the close of an intensity of pause, 
 what was " the amount of the National Debt." 
 
 I used to rally him on the apparent 
 inconsequentiality of his manner upon these 
 occasions ; and he was always ready to carry on 
 the joke, because he said that my laughter did 
 not hinder my being in earnest. With deepest 
 love and admiration was my laughter mixed, or 
 I should not have ventured upon paying him the 
 compliment of it. 
 
 I have now before me his corrected proof of 
 an anonymous pamphlet which he wrote in the 
 year 1817, entitled "A Proposal for Putting 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 Reform to the Vote through the Country." I 
 will make an extract or two from it, to shew how 
 zealous he was on the subject ; how generous in 
 the example which he offered to set in behalf of 
 Reform; and how judicious as well as fervent 
 this most calumniated and noble spirit could be 
 in recommending the most avowed of his opinions. 
 The title-page of the proof is scrawled over 
 with sketches of trees and foliage, which was 
 a habit of his in the intervals of thinking, when- 
 ever he had pen or pencil in hand. He would 
 indulge in it while waiting for you at an inn, or 
 in a door-way, scratching his elms and oak-trees 
 on the walls. He did them very spiritedly, and 
 with what the painters call a gusto, particularly 
 in point of grace. If he had room, he would 
 add a cottage, and a piece of water, with a sail- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 ing boat mooring among the trees. This was his 
 beau ideal of a life, the repose of which was 
 to be earned by zeal for his species, and war- 
 ranted by the common good. What else the 
 image of a boat brings to the memory of those 
 who have lost him, I will not say, especially 
 as he is still with us in his writings. But it is 
 worth observing how agreeably this habit of 
 sketching trees and bowers evinced the gentle- 
 ness of my friend's nature, the longing he had 
 for rest, and the smallness of his personal 
 desires. 
 
 It has been hastily implied in a late notice of 
 him, in a periodical work, that he was an aris- 
 tocrat by disposition as well as birth ; a conclu- 
 sion natural enough, even with intelligent 
 men, who have been bred among aristocratical 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 influences ; but it is a pity that any such persons 
 should give it as their opinion, because it tends 
 to confirm inferior understandings in a similar 
 delusion, and to make the vulgarity of would- 
 be refinement still more confident in its assump- 
 tions. It is acknowledged on all hands, that 
 Mr. Shelley's mind was not one to be measured 
 by common rules, — not even by such as the vul- 
 gar, great or small, take for uncommon ones, 
 or for canning pieces of corporate knowledge 
 snugly kept between one another. If there 
 is anything which I can affirm of my beloved 
 friend, with as much confidence as the fact of 
 his being benevolent and a friend, it is that 
 he was totally free from mistakes of this kind ; 
 that he never for one moment confounded the 
 claims of real and essential, with those of con- 
 
PREFACE. XV11 
 
 ventional refinement; or allowed one to be 
 substituted for the other in his mind by any 
 compromise of his self-love. 
 
 I will admit it to be possible, that there were 
 moments in which he might have been deceived 
 in his estimation of people's manners, in con- 
 sequence of those to which he had been early 
 accustomed; but the charge implied against 
 him involves a conscious, or at least an habitual, 
 preference of what are called high-bred man- 
 ners, for their own sakes, apart from the natures 
 of those who exhibited them, and to the disad- 
 vantage of those to whom they had not been 
 taught. I can affirm that it is a total mistake, 
 and that he partook of no such weakness. I 
 have seen him indeed draw himself up with a 
 sort of irrepressible air of dignified objection, 
 
XV111 PREFACE. 
 
 when moral vulgarity was betrayed in his pre- 
 sence, whatever might have been the rank of the 
 betrayer; but nobody could hail with greater joy 
 and simplicity, or meet upon more equal grounds, 
 the instinct of a real delicacy and good intention, 
 come in what shape it might. Why should he 
 have done otherwise? He was Shelley; and 
 not merely a man of that name. What had 
 ordinary high life, and its pretensions, and the 
 getting together of a few people for the sake 
 of giving themselves a little importance, to do 
 with his universal affinities ? It was finely said 
 one day in my hearing by Mr. Hazlitt, when 
 asked why he could not temporize a little now 
 and then, or make a compromise with an 
 untruth, that it was " not worth his while." It 
 was not worth Mr. Shelley's while to be an 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 aristocrat. His spirit was large enough to take 
 ten aristocracies into the hollow of his hand, 
 and look at them as I have seen him look at 
 insects from a tree, certainly with no thought 
 either of superiority or the reverse, but with a 
 curious interest. 
 
 That quintessence of gentlemanly demeanour 
 which was observable in Mr. Shelley, in draw- 
 ing-rooms, when he was not over-thoughtful, 
 was nothing but an exquisite combination of 
 sense, moral grace, and habitual sympathy. It 
 was more dignified than what is called dignity 
 in others, because it was the heart of the thing 
 itself, or intrinsic worth, graced by the sincerest 
 idealism ; and not a response made by imputed 
 merit to the homage of the imputers. The best 
 conventional dignity could have no more come 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 up to it, than the trick of an occasion to the 
 truth of a life.* 
 
 But if an aristocracy of intellect and morals 
 were required, he was the man for one of their 
 
 * The consciousness of possessing the respect of others, 
 apart from any reason for it but a conventional one, will 
 sometimes produce a really fine expression of countenance, 
 where the nature is good. On the other hand, I have 
 seen Mr. Shelley, from a doubt of the sympathy of those 
 around him, suddenly sink from the happier look above 
 described, into an expression of misgiving and even of 
 destitution, that was extremely touching. It arose out of 
 a sudden impression, that all the sympathy was on his 
 side. Sympathy is undoubtedly the one thing needful 
 and final ; and though the receipt of it on false grounds, 
 appears the most formidable obstacle in the way of its 
 true ascendancy, and is so, yet out of the very spirit of 
 that fact will come the salvation of the world ; for when 
 once a right view of it gets into fashion, the prejudices 
 as well as understandings of mankind will be as much 
 on that side as they are against it now, and the accelera- 
 tion of good be without a drawback. 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 leaders. High and princely was the example he 
 could set to an aristocracy of a different sort, as 
 the reader will see by the following extract from 
 his pamphlet. The late death of an extraordinary 
 man of genius, the delight of nations, and the 
 special glory of his country, has just shewn the 
 
 blushing world what little things could be done 
 for him, dead or alive, by the " great men " whom 
 he condescended to glorify. The manager of 
 a Scottish theatre (to his immortal credit) * has 
 contributed, in furtherance of the erection of a 
 monument to him, precisely the same sum as was 
 drawn forth out of the money bags of a Scottish 
 
 * Mr. Murray. I remember the gentlemanly paternity 
 of his father's manner on the English stage, and the fine 
 eyes of his sister (Mrs. Henry Siddons) ; and was not sur- 
 prised to find generosity in such a stock. 
 -c 
 
XXII PREFACE. 
 
 Duke, in the receipt of nearly a thousand pounds 
 a day. The sum is the same that is mentioned in 
 the ensuing paragraph from Mr. Shelley's pam- 
 phlet. After proposing a meeting of the Friends 
 of Reform, for the purpose of recommending his 
 plan to the nation, the author notices the ex- 
 penses which would probably be incurred ; and 
 then makes the following offer : — 
 
 " I have an income of a thousand a year, on 
 which I support my wife and children in decent 
 comfort, and from which I satisfy certain large 
 claims of general justice.* Should any plan 
 
 * By these " claims of justice," he meant the wants of 
 his friends and the poor. I do not wish, God knows, to 
 dispute the phrase with him; but such were the notions 
 of this singular " aristocrat," and most equal-sighted fellow- 
 creature. 
 
PREFACE. XX111 
 
 resembling that which I have proposed be de- 
 termined on by you, I will give 100/., being a 
 tenth part of one year's income, towards its 
 object; and I will not deem so proudly of 
 myself as to believe that I shall stand alone in 
 this respect, when any rational or consistent 
 scheme for the public benefit shall have received 
 the sanction of those great and good men who 
 have devoted themselves for its preservation." 
 
 The delight of talking about my friend, has 
 led me into a longer Preface than I intended to 
 write. I did not think of detaining the reader 
 so long from his Poem : — most probably, indeed, 
 I have not detained him. I will, however, make 
 the other, and longer extract, without further 
 remark. If this Pamphlet was the work of an 
 
 aristocrat, even in the passages where it recom- 
 c 2 
 
XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 mends time to be given for the abolition of his 
 class, he was surely the strangest republican 
 of an aristocrat that ever existed, and had the 
 oddest notions of what was puerile ! * 
 
 " A certain degree of coalition," says he, 
 "among the sincere friends of Reform, in 
 
 * See his works, passim. A multitude of passages 
 might be quoted, such as no aristocrat would write out of 
 mere spleen, or " with greater pride of his own." They 
 are too frequent, earnest, and full of thought. If Mr. 
 Shelley met with a gird at things aristocratical, in any 
 book he was reading, he marked it as worthy to be noted. 
 I was looking the other day into a Diogenes Laertius that 
 belonged to him, and almost the first passage 1 met with 
 thus marked, was a saying of the biographer's namesake, 
 in which birth and honours are treated with contempt. I 
 am not here begging the question against such things. I 
 am merely recording my friend's real opinions. The only 
 sentiment by which a privileged class is to be vindicated, 
 may claim a fair discussion ; and the settlement of it be 
 safely left to the growth of the sentiment itself, and its ex- 
 pansion into a freedom from its own necessity. 
 
PREFACE. XXV 
 
 whatever shape, is indispensable to the success 
 of this proposal. The friends of universal or 
 of limited suffrage, of Annual or Triennial 
 Parliaments, ought to settle the subjects on 
 which they disagree, when it is known whether 
 the nation wills that measure on which they 
 are all agreed. It is trivial to discuss what 
 species of Reform should have place, when it 
 yet remains a question whether there will 
 be any Reform or no. Meanwhile, nothing 
 remains for me but to state explicitly my sen- 
 timents on this subject. The statement is 
 indeed quite foreign to the merits of the proposal 
 in itself; and I should have suppressed it, until 
 called upon to subscribe such a requisition as 
 1 have suggested, if the question which it is 
 natural to ask, as to what are the sentiments 
 
XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 of the person who originates the scheme, could 
 have received in any other manner a more 
 simple or direct reply. 
 
 " It appears to me, that Annual Parliaments 
 ought to be adopted as an immediate measure, 
 as one which strongly tends to preserve the 
 liberty and happiness of the. nation. It would 
 enable men to cultivate those energies on 
 which the performance of the political duties 
 belonging to the citizen of a free state, as the 
 rightful guardian of its prosperity, essentially 
 depends ; it would familiarize men with liberty, 
 by disciplining them to an habitual acquaint- 
 ance with its forms. Political institution is 
 undoubtedly susceptible of such improvements 
 as no rational person can consider possible, so 
 long as the present degraded condition to 
 
PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 which the vital imperfections in the existing 
 system of government has reduced the vast 
 multitude of men shall subsist. The securest 
 method of arriving at such beneficial innova- 
 tions, is to proceed gradually, and with caution; 
 or, in the place of that order and freedom, 
 which the friends of Reform assert to be vio- 
 lated now, anarchy and despotism will follow. 
 Annual Parliaments have my entire assent. I 
 will not state those general reasonings in their 
 favour, which Mr. Cobbett and other writers 
 have already made familiar to the public mind. 
 
 " With respect to Universal Suffrage, I con- 
 fess I consider its adoption, in the present 
 unprepared state of public knowledge and 
 feeling, fraught with peril. I think that none 
 but those who register their names as paying 
 
XXV111 PREFACE. 
 
 a certain small sum in direct taxes,* ought, at 
 present, to send Members to Parliament. The 
 consequence of the immediate extension of the 
 elective franchise to every male adult, would 
 be to place power in the hands of men who 
 have been rendered brutal, and torpid, and 
 ferocious, by ages of slavery^ It is to suppose 
 that the qualities belonging to a demagogue 
 are such as are sufficient to endow a legislator. 
 I allow Major Cartwright's arguments to be 
 unanswerable ; abstractedly it is the right of 
 every human being to have a share in the 
 government. But Mr. Paine's arguments are 
 also unanswerable : a pure republic may be shewn, 
 by inferences the most obvious and irresistible, to 
 
 * His own italics. The rest are the Editor's. 
 
PREFACE. XXIX 
 
 be that system of social order the fittest to produce 
 the happiness, and promote the genuine eminence 
 of man. Yet nothing can be less consistent 
 with reason, or afford smaller hopes of any 
 beneficial issue, than the plan which should 
 abolish the regal and the aristocratical branches 
 of our constitution, before the public mind, 
 through many gradations of improvement, shall 
 have arrived at the maturity which can dis- 
 regard those symbols of its childhood" 
 
 I need not point out to the reader's attention 
 the singular and happy anticipations contained 
 in the above extract ; neither shall I stop to in- 
 quire how far Mr. Shelley would have thought 
 the feasibilities of improvement hastened by the 
 events that have taken place of late years — 
 events, one of them in particular, (the Glorious 
 
XXX PREFACE. 
 
 Three Days) which it would have repaid him 
 for all his endurances, had he lived to see, 
 
 And who shall say that he has not seen them ? 
 For if ever there was a man upon earth, of a 
 more spiritual nature than ordinary, partaking 
 of the errors and perturbations of his species, 
 but seeing and working through them with a 
 seraphical purpose of good, such an one was 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 L. H. 
 
THE 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 As I lay asleep in Italy, 
 There came a voice from over the sea, 
 And with great power it forth led me 
 To walk in the visions of Poesy. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 II. 
 
 I met Murder on the way — 
 He had a mask like Castlereagh — 
 Very smooth he look'd, yet grim ; 
 Seven bloodhounds followed him : 
 
 in. 
 
 All were fat ; and well they might 
 
 Be in admirable plight, 
 
 For one by one, and two by two, 
 
 He tossed them human hearts to chew, 
 
 Which from his wide cloak he drew. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 IV. 
 
 Next came Fraud, and he had on, 
 
 Like Lord E , an ermined gown ; 
 
 His big tears, for he wept well, 
 Turned to mill-stones as they fell ; 
 
 And the little children, who 
 
 Round his feet played to and fro, 
 
 Thinking every tear a gem, 
 
 Had their brains knocked out by them. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 VI. 
 
 Clothed with the # * as with light, 
 And the shadows of the night, 
 Like # * # next, Hypocrisy, 
 On a crocodile rode by. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And many more Destructions played 
 In this ghastly masquerade, 
 All disguised, even to the eyes, 
 Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 VITI. 
 
 Last came Anarchy ; he rode 
 
 On a white horse, splashed with blood ; 
 
 He was pale even to the lips, 
 
 Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And he wore a kingly crown ; 
 And in his grasp a sceptre shone ; 
 And on his brow this mark I saw— 
 " I am God, and King, and Law ! " 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 X. 
 
 With a pace stately and fast, 
 Over English land he past, 
 Trampling to a mire of blood 
 The adoring multitude. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And a mighty troop around, 
 
 With their trampling shook the ground, 
 
 Waving each a bloody sword, 
 
 For the service of their Lord. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 XII. 
 
 And with glorious triumph, they 
 Rode through England proud and gay, 
 Drunk as with intoxication 
 Of the wine of desolation. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, 
 Passed the pageant swift and free, 
 Tearing up, and trampling down, 
 Till they came to London town. 
 
 D 
 
THE MASOUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And each dweller, panic-stricken, 
 Felt his heart with terror sicken, 
 Hearing the tempestuous cry 
 Of the triumph of Anarchy. 
 
 xv. 
 
 For with pomp to meet him came, 
 Clothed in arms like blood and flame, 
 The hired murderers who did sing, 
 " Thou art God, and Law, and King. 
 
t 
 
 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " We have waited, weak and lone, 
 For thy coming, Mighty One ! 
 Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, 
 Give us glory, and blood, and gold." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd, 
 To the earth their pale brows bowed : 
 Like a bad prayer not over loud, 
 Whispering — " Thou art Law and God." 
 d2 
 
10 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Then all cried with one accord, 
 
 " Thou art King, and God, and Lord ; 
 
 Anarchy, to thee we bow, 
 
 Be thy name made holy now ! " 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And Anarchy, the skeleton, 
 Bowed and grinned to every one, 
 As well as if his education, 
 Had cost ten millions to the nation. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 11 
 
 XX. 
 
 For he knew the palaces 
 Of our kings were nightly his ; 
 His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 
 And the gold-in-woven robe. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 So he sent his slaves before 
 To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 
 And was proceeding with intent 
 To meet his pensioned parliament, 
 
12 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
 And her name was Hope, she said : 
 But she looked more like Despair ; 
 And she cried out in the air ; 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 " My father, Time, is weak and grey 
 With waiting for a better day ; 
 See how idiot-like he stands, 
 Fumbling with his palsied hands ! 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 13 
 XXIV. 
 
 " He has had child after child, 
 And the dust of death is piled 
 Over every one but me — 
 Misery ! oh, Misery ! " 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Then she lay down in the street, 
 Right before the horses' feet, 
 Expecting with a patient eye, 
 Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy. 
 
14 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 When between her and her foes 
 A mist, a light, an image rose, 
 Small at first, and weak and frail 
 Like the vapour of the vale : 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Till, as clouds grow on the blast, 
 Like tower-crown'd giants striding fast. 
 And glare with lightnings as they flyy 
 And speak in thunder to the sky, 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 15 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 It grew — a shape arrayed in mail 
 Brighter than the viper's scale, 
 And upborne on wings whose grain 
 Was as the light of sunny rain. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 On its helm, seen far away, 
 
 A planet, like the morning's, lay; 
 
 And those plumes it light rained through, 
 
 Like a shower of crimson dew. 
 
16 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 With step as soft as wind it passed 
 O'er the heads of men — so fast 
 That they knew the presence there, 
 And looked — and all was empty air. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 As flowers beneath the footstep waken, 
 As stars from night's loose hair are shaken, 
 As waves arise when loud winds call, 
 Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 17 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 And the prostrate multitude 
 Looked — and ankle deep in blood, 
 Hope, that maiden most serene, 
 Was walking with a quiet mien : 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 
 
 Lay dead earth upon the earth ; 
 
 The Horse of Death, tameless as wind, 
 
 Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 
 
 To dust the murderers thronged behind. 
 
18 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 XXXIV. 
 
 A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 
 A sense, awakening and yet tender, 
 Was heard and felt — and at its close 
 These words of joy and fear arose : 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 (As if their own indignant earth, 
 Which gave the sons of England birth, 
 Had felt their blood upon her brow, 
 And shuddering with a mother's throe, 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. ]9 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Had turned every drop of blood, 
 
 By which her face had been bedewed, 
 
 To an accent unwithstood, 
 
 As if her heart had cried aloud:) 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " Men of England, Heirs of Glory, 
 Heroes of unwritten story, 
 Nurslings of one mighty mother, 
 Hopes of her, and one another, 
 
20 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 " Rise, like lions after slumber, 
 In unvanquishable number, 
 Shake your chains to earth like dew, 
 Which in sleep had fall'n on you. 
 
 xxxix. 
 
 " What is Freedom ? Ye can tell 
 That which Slavery is too well, 
 For its very name has grown 
 To an echo of your own. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 21 
 
 XL. 
 
 " 'Tis to work, and have such pay 
 As just keeps life from day to day 
 In your limbs, as in a cell 
 For the tyrants' use to dwell : 
 
 XLl. 
 
 " So that ye for them are made, 
 Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade 
 With or without your own will, bent 
 To their defence and nourishment. 
 
22 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 " 'Tis to see your children weak 
 With their mothers pine and peak, 
 When the winter winds are bleak :- 
 They are dying whilst I speak. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 " 'Tis to hunger for such diet, 
 As the rich man in his riot 
 Casts to the fat dogs that lie 
 Surfeiting beneath his eye. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 23 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 " 'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold 
 Take from toil a thousand fold, 
 More than e'er its substance could 
 In the tyrannies of old : 
 
 XLV. 
 
 " Paper coin — that forgery 
 Of the title deeds, which ye 
 Hold to something of the worth 
 Of the inheritance of Earth. 
 
24 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 "'Tis to be a slave in soul, 
 And to hold no strong controul 
 Over your own wills, but be 
 All that others make of ye. 
 
 XLVI I. 
 
 " And at length when ye complain, 
 With a murmur weak and vain, 
 'Tis to see the tyrant's crew 
 Ride over your wives and you : — 
 Blood is on the grass like dew. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 25 
 
 XLVir 
 
 " Then it is to feel revenge, 
 
 Fiercely thirsting to exchange 
 
 Blood for blood — and wrong for wrong 
 
 Do NOT THUS, WHEN YE ARE STRONG. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 " Birds find rest in narrow nest, 
 When weary of the winged quest ; 
 Beasts find fare in woody lair, 
 When storm and snow are in the air. 
 e 2 
 
26 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 " Asses, swine, have litter spread, 
 And with fitting food are fed ; 
 All things have a home but one : 
 Thou, oh Englishman, hast none ! 
 
 LI. 
 
 " This is Slavery — savage men, 
 Or wild beasts within a den, 
 Would endure not as ye do : 
 But such ills they never knew. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 27 
 
 LII. 
 
 " What art thou, Freedom ? Oh ! could Slaves 
 Answer from their living graves 
 This demand, tyrants would flee 
 Like a dream's dim imagery. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 " Thou art not, as impostors say, 
 A shadow soon to pass away, 
 A superstition, and a name 
 Echoing from the caves of Fame. 
 
28 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 " For the labourer thou art bread, 
 And a comely table spread, 
 From his daily labour come, 
 In a neat and happy home. 
 
 LV. 
 
 " Thou art clothes, and fire, and food 
 For the trampled multitude : • 
 No — in countries that are free 
 Such starvation cannot be, 
 As in England now we see. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 29 
 
 LVK 
 
 " To the rich thou art a check, 
 When his foot is on the neck 
 Of his victim; thou dost make 
 That he treads upon a snake. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 " Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold 
 May thy righteous laws be sold, 
 As laws are in England : — thou 
 Shield'st alike the high and low. 
 
30 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LVI1I. 
 
 " Thou art Wisdom — Freedom never 
 Dreams that God will damn for ever 
 All who think those things untrue, 
 Of which priests make such ado. 
 
 LIX, 
 
 " Thou art Peace — never by thee 
 Would blood and treasure wasted be, 
 As tyrants wasted them, when all 
 Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 31 
 
 LX. 
 
 " What if English toil and blood 
 Was poured forth, even as a flood ! 
 It availed, — oh Liberty ! 
 To dim— but not extinguish thee. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 " Thou art Love — the rich have kist 
 Thy feet, and like him following Christ, 
 Give their substance to the free, 
 And through the rough world follow thee. 
 
32 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 " Oh turn their wealth to arms, and make 
 War for thy beloved sake, 
 On wealth and war and fraud : whence they 
 Drew the power which is their prey. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 " Science, and Poetry, and Thought, 
 Are thy lamps ; they make the lot 
 Of the dwellers in a cot 
 So serene, they curse it not. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 33 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 " Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, 
 
 All that can adorn and bless, 
 
 Art thou : let deeds, not words, express 
 
 Thine exceeding loveliness. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 " Let a great assembly be 
 
 Of the fearless, of the free, 
 
 On some spot of English ground, 
 
 Where the plains stretch wide around. 
 
34 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 " Let the blue sky overhead, 
 The green earth, on which ye tread, 
 All that must eternal be, 
 Witness the solemnity. * 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 " From the corners uttermost 
 Of the bounds of English coast; 
 From every hut, village, and town, 
 Where those who live and suffer, moan 
 For others' misery and their own : 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 35 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 " From the workhouse and the prison, 
 Where pale as corpses newly risen, 
 Women, children, young, and old, 
 Groan for pain, and weep for cold ; 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 " From the haunts of daily life, 
 Where is waged the daily strife 
 With common wants and common cares, 
 Which sow the human heart with tares ; 
 
36 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 " Lastly, from the palaces, 
 Where the murmur of distress 
 Echoes, like the distant sound 
 Of a wind alive around ;. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 " Those prison -halls of wealth and fashion, 
 Where some few feel such compassion 
 For those who groan, and toil, and wail, 
 As must make their brethren pale ; 
 

 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 37 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 " Ye who suffer woes untold, 
 Or to feel, or to behold 
 Your lost country bought and sold 
 With a price of blood and gold ; 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 " Let a vast assembly be, 
 
 And with great solemnity 
 
 Declare with measured words, that ye 
 
 Are, as God has made ye, free ! 
 
38 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 " Be your strong and simple words 
 Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
 And wide as targes let them be, 
 With their shade to cover ye. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 " Let the tyrants pour around 
 With a quick and startling sound, 
 Like the loosening of a sea, 
 Troops of armed emblazonry. 
 
THE MASOUE OF ANARCHY. 09 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 " Let the charged artillery drive, 
 Till the dead air seems alive 
 With the clash of clanging wheels, 
 And the tramp of horses' heels. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 " Let the fixed bayonet 
 Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
 Its bright point in English blood, 
 Looking keen as one for food. 
 
40 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 " Let the horsemen's scimitars 
 Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars, 
 Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
 In a sea of death and mourning. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 " Stand ye calm and resolute, 
 
 Like a forest close and mute, 
 
 With folded arms, and looks which are 
 
 Weapons of an unvanquished war. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 41 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 " And let Panic, who outspeeds 
 The career of armed steeds, 
 Pass, a disregarded shade, 
 Thro' your phalanx undismay'd.* 
 
 * The three stanzas next ensuing are printed in italics, not because 
 they are better, or indeed so well written, as some of the rest, but as 
 marking out the sober, lawful, and charitable mode of proceeding 
 advocated and anticipated by this supposed reckless innovator. " Pas- 
 sive obedience " he certainly had not ; but here follows a picture and a 
 recommendation of " non-resistance," in all its glory. The mingled 
 emotion and dignity of it is admirably expressed in the second line of 
 stanza eighty-five. Let churches militant read it, and blush to call 
 the author no Christian ! 
 
42 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 LXXXI. 
 
 " Let the laws of your own land, 
 Good or ill, between ye stand, 
 Hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
 Arbiters of the dispute. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 M The old laws of England — they 
 Whose reverend heads with age are grey, 
 Children of a wiser day ; 
 And whose solemn voice must be 
 Thine own echo — Liberty ! 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 43 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 " On those who first should violate 
 Such sacred heralds in their state, 
 Rest the blood that must ensue, 
 And it will not rest on you. 
 
 LXXX1V. 
 
 " And if then the tyrants dare, 
 Let them ride among you there ; 
 Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew ; 
 What they like, that let them do. 
 
44 THE MASCjUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 " With folded arms and steady eyes, 
 And little fear and less surprise, 
 Look upon them as they stay 
 Till their rage has died away: 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 " Then they will return with shame, 
 To the place from which they came, 
 And the blood thus shed will speak 
 In hot blushes on their cheek : 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 45 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 " Every woman in the land 
 Will point at them as they stand — 
 They will hardly dare to greet 
 Their acquaintance in the street : 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 " And the bold, true warriors, 
 Who have hugged Danger in wars, 
 Will turn to those who would be free 
 Ashamed of such base company : 
 
46 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 " And that slaughter to the nation 
 Shall steam up like inspiration, 
 Eloquent, oracular, 
 A volcano heard afar : 
 
 xc. 
 
 " And these words shall then become 
 Like Oppression's thundered doom, 
 Ringing through each heart and brain, 
 Heard again— again — again. 
 
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 47 
 
 XCI. 
 
 Rise like lions after slumber 
 In unvanquishable number ! 
 Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
 Which in sleep had fall'n on you : 
 Ye are many — they are few. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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