Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan 
To think that a most unambitious slave, 
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave 
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne 
Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer 
A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept 
In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre, 
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, 
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, 
And stifled thee, their minister. I know 
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, 
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe 
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, 
And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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