Explore "Sonnet to George the Fourth, on the Repeal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's Forfeiture" by Lord Byron on Textopian.
To be the father of the fatherless, / To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise / His offspring, who expired in other days, / To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less - / This is to be a monarch, and repress / Envy into unutterable praise.
Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, / For who would lift a hand, except to bless? / Were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet / To make thyself beloved? And to be / Omnipotent by mercy's means - for thus / Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete: / A despot thou, and yet thy people free, / And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.