"The Masque of Anarchy"

"‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell

That which slavery is, too well—

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own.

‘’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,

‘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.

‘’Tis to see your children weak

With their mothers pine and peak,

When the winter winds are bleak,—

They are dying whilst I speak.

‘’Tis to hunger for such diet

As the rich man in his riot

Casts to the fat dogs that lie

Surfeiting beneath his eye ;

‘’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold

Take from Toil a thousandfold

More than e’er its substance could

In the tyrannies of old.

‘Paper coin—that forgery

Of the title-deeds, which ye

Hold to something from the worth

Of the inheritance of Earth.

‘’Tis to be a slave in soul

And to hold no strong control

Over your own wills, but be

All that others make of ye.

‘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" - Percy Shelley, English Romantic Poet, in the Aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre (1819), an army attack on 70,000 people protesting starvation caused by a callous tax on grain, horrendous working conditions, and a lack of universal suffrage.