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SONNET II. POLITICAL GREATNESS. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Posthumous Poems [1824]

Edition used:

Posthumous Poems (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824).

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SONNET II.

POLITICAL GREATNESS.

  • Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
  • Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
  • Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
  • Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
  • History is but the shadow of their shame,
  • Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
  • As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
  • Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
  • Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit
  • By force or custom? Man who man would be,
  • Must rule the empire of himself; in it
  • Must be supreme, establishing his throne
  • On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
  • Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.