England in 1819

"England in 1819" is a political sonnet by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley which reflects his liberal ideals.

Background
The poem was composed in 1819, but it was not published until 1839 in the four-volume The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: Edward Moxon) edited by Mary Shelley. Like all sonnets, "England in 1819" has fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter, but its rhyming scheme (ABABAB CDCD CCDD) differs from that of the traditional English sonnet (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).

Summary
The sonnet describes a very forlorn reality. The poem passionately attacks, as the poet sees it, England's decadent, oppressive ruling class. King George III is described as "old, mad, blind, despised, and dying". The "leech-like" nobility ("princes") metaphorically suck the blood from the people, who are, in the sonnet, oppressed, hungry, and hopeless, their fields untilled. Meanwhile, the army is corrupt and dangerous to liberty, the laws are harsh and useless, religion has lost its morality, and Parliament (the "Senate") is a relic. In addition, the civil rights of the Catholic minority are non-existent "Time's worst statute unrepealed". In a startling burst of optimism, the last two lines express the hope that a "glorious Phantom" may spring forth from this decay and "illumine our tempestuous day".

This poem was written as a response to the brutal Peterloo Massacre in August 1819.