Explore "Fragment: ‘what Men Gain Fairly'" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
What men gain fairly-that they should possess, / And children may inherit idleness, / From him who earns it-This is understood; / Private injustice may be general good. / But he who gains by base and armed wrong, / Or guilty fraud, or base compliances, / May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress / Is stripped from a convicted thief; and he / Left in the nakedness of infamy.