Percy Bysshe Shelley , "An Ode, To The Assertors Of Liberty" (1820)
Transcribed from pages 191-192 of the 1839 Edward Moxon edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Poetical Works, Volume III.
AN ODE,
TO THE ASSERTORS OF LIBERTY.
- ARISE, arise, arise!
- There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;
- Be your wounds like eyes
- To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.
- What other grief were it just to pay?
- Your sons, your wives, your brethern, were they;
- Who said they were slain on the battle day?
- Awaken, awaken, awaken!
- The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;
- Be the cold chains shaken
- To the dust, where your kindred repose, repose:
- Their bones in the grave will start and move,
- When they hear the voices of those they love,
- Most loud in the holy combat above.
- Wave, wave high the banner!
- When freedom is riding to conquest by:
- Though the slaves that fan her
- Be famine and toil, giving sigh for sigh.
- And ye, who attend her imperial car,
- Lift not your hands in the banded war,
- But in her defense whose children ye are.
- Glory, glory, glory,
- To those who have greatly suffered and done!
- Never name in story
- Was greater than that which ye shall have won.
- Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,
- Whose revenge, pride, and power, they have overthrown:
- Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.
- Bind, bind every brow
- With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine:
- Hide the blood-stains now
- With hues which sweet nature has made divine:
- Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:
- But let not the pansy among them be;
- Ye were injured, and that means memory.
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