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 leechlike to their fainting country cling,

Til 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 tempestuous day.