An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-- <br />Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow <br />Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,-- <br />Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, <br />But leech-like to their fainting country cling, <br />Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-- <br />A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-- <br />An army, which liberticide and prey <br />Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-- <br />Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; <br />Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed; <br />A Senate,--Time’s worst statute, unrepealed,-- <br />Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may <br />Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.<br /><br />Percy Bysshe Shelley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-england-in-1819/
