Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonapart
Addressing the fallen Bonaparte, a republican recalls hating his tyranny and wishing that the evils he served would destroy him. With Bonaparte and France brought low, the speaker recognizes custom, legal crime, and violent faith as more enduring enemies of virtue than force or fraud.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Political Poetry, Sonnet · 173 words
First lines
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.
What this Textopian page supports
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Political Poetry, Sonnet
- Length: 173 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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Genres
- Political Poetry — The speaker denounces a fallen ruler’s betrayal of liberty and identifies enduring forms of political and religious oppression.
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from hatred of the fallen tyrant to a recognition of virtue’s more enduring enemies.
Tags
republicanism · tyranny · liberty · political disillusionment · custom · religious violence · sonnet