Quarter 2 Essay Outline Form Name: Fill & Download for Free

No one probably cares about mine, but here you go.I’ve only done freshman year, so I’m only answering for that year.Classes:Honors English 9 (Full year)Honors Civics/government (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, full year)Honors Science (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, full year)Tests weighted at 70%.Honors Algebra II (Full year)Tests weighted at 90%.Choir (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, full year)Spanish 2 (Full year)Tests weighted at 80%.Health (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, quarter 1)Driver’s Education (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, quarter 2)Intro to Computer Programming (Quarter 3)Phy Ed (Not the actual name of the course but I can’t include it because of privacy reasons, quarter 4)Other Info:My school has an unweighted GPA scale and the highest letter grade possible is an A, not an A+.I took the hardest classes possible for someone in my situation.Some people could take Honors Chemistry because they finished Algebra II before 9th grade began. Maybe I could have too, with some begging, if I knew that. I didn’t have a lot of friends in middle school so I never knew what was happening.Some people were in different math classes. I moved to a different district in 6th grade, and never got to test to go directly into Algebra I in elementary school. I did a summer course so I got ahead by 2 years. Some people, however are taking Calculus or even multivariable calculus because of other programs in 9th grade.Some people could take a different language course if they tested out or were in a different language course back in middle school.Before the school year began/summer:4 honors classes? The registration form says they’ll be rigorous. Whatever, it’s fine, I’ll work hard enough to do well in them.Most people have a 4.0 freshman year? That’ll me too, I’ll work hard enough to maintain it.Oh no. Oh, no. You will be SO surprised. (my name). SO surprised and disappointed. (3.9 predicted)Honors English will be hard. I’ll read a lot this year.Didn’t read a lot. I enjoy reading, but I just couldn’t find time. That’s a lie. It wasn’t important enough to me for me to make time for it.I hope that I can read this summer, though.Summer assignment? I won’t procrastinate.I ended up finishing the assignment one week before it was due.I need to ace all of my classes. This year should be a breeze. Sophomore, junior, and senior years are the hardest, so this is supposed to be easy.Not happening, kid.I need to do well on every extracurricular I do.Not happening either, kid.Terrible time management? Procrastination? Sleep deprivation? Can’t happen. Won’t happen.The reason for your terrible grades, kid.Quarter 1:My teachers are amazing and nice! Except the English teacher scares me... Nope, don’t have that attitude! The teacher probably just has higher expectations!The English teacher wasn’t THAT bad. Probably the least nice teacher of the year, but it wasn’t unbearable.Okay, so maybe I should’ve studied harder for that first quiz in government. (I studied, but not for long) 11/15 C on that one.Joined Debate, Robotics, Math Team, auditioned for Freshman Select Choir (and didn’t get in)First government test? Ended up studying 2 nights before the test unlike the recommended 3 nights before.Still did alright, I got a 32/35 (A-) on the multiple choice. 8/8 (A) on the FRQ. I was disappointed with my multiple choice score, though.Second government test? Ended up studying 2 nights before the test unlike the recommended 3 nights before.Did bad on that one, it played a role in bringing my grade down to an A-. 44/50, (B+) on that one. No FRQ because we had an essay exam instead.ESSAY EXAM? Oh no, I can’t write well. It’s fine, I’ll just ask the teacher for help. It’s good preparation for next year in APUSH, anyway.I ended up with a 3/5, or a 24/30 (B-) on it. I didn’t ask the teacher for help. That one played a huge role in bringing my grade down as well.Quarter reading assignment? I won’t procrastinate.Ended up with a 6/12 (F) because it was incomplete. I read a book and wrote the assignment the night before.It wasn’t my first F. I got an F on a pop quiz in that class as well.2 A-S? ONE B+? OH NO, MY GPA ISN’T A 4.0! I CAN’T RAISE IT NOW! :( (In Honors English & Honors American Citizenship & Government)2 of my grades were rounded. Honors Earth/Physical Science was at an A-, rounded to an A. Honors English was at a B+, rounded to an A-. My GPA was a 3.945I need to quit robotics… It’s too much of a time commitment.I’m quitting Math Team too… Mondays are for Debate practice.Quarter 2Okay, I can still get a 3.98 by senior year if I get As for the rest of my high school career. (Yes, I did the math)This time I CANNOT procrastinate on the quarter reading assignment.Ended up with a 0/15 on that one. Yes, it played a huge role. It brought my grade down from an A to a B+. Not high enough to be rounded.I’m going to audition for speech team! For humorous prose and great speeches, two categories I did back in middle school!It was a terrible audition, and I did not get in. I don’t plan on auditioning next year either because it conflicts with Science Olympiad.New debate partner! Sweet! My old one was toxic. (when I was late to a tournament one day, my partner didn’t even tell me the room number and I had to follow my partner around like an idiot)My new debate partner was amazing. My partner did better at the first tournament than I did. I was a terrible debate partner, my partner deserved better. :(We didn’t do well (because of me). On the tournament I couldn’t make it to, my partner did amazing.I shared our debate case with my old partner and during practice, the same evidence card and analysis was used. My debate partner was friends with the debate coach’s kid, and the coach found out. My old debate partner got mad and stopped talking to me. Thankfully, through that experience I didn’t have to be friends with my old partner anymore. I think my old partner didn’t want to be friends with me either. When my partner got the excuse to leave me, I was left alone at the lunch table, instead of working things out. (which I’m honestly glad about)The debate season ended. My partner and I didn’t make it to state. WHY DID I QUIT MATH TEAM? NOW I HAVE NOTHING BUT SCIENCE OLYMPIAD!Well, I’ll join an ACT practice course! I’ll take it in July!Whenever we’d do practice tests, I’d fall asleep because of sleep deprivation. I got a 16/36 on the English section because of that. Later on towards the end of the course though, I got a 22/36. Still bad. English is my worst section along with reading.I haven’t been studying so I’m not taking it in July. Maybe December.I’ll audition for the winter play! I did terribly in my audition because the script was given there. I was confused at why no one laughed, I tried to make it funny. Later this year I found out that I have a dry sense of humor and no one understands my humor. There were people who didn’t get in who were amazing at acting though, and I was very confused as to why they didn’t get in. Such as my 2nd debate partner. My 2nd debate partner was the student director for the fall play, for crying out loud!Science Olympiad. Did awful because I procrastinated too much.RSI? I want to get in! Most people were at the USACO, USNCO, USAMO, USABO, OR USAPhO! I’ll start a Chemistry, Physics, and Biology Olympiad at school!They said no because Science Olympiad existed already. They said I could start a student-led study group for it instead, though. I didn’t end up starting it because I didn’t think anyone would join.UGH why didn’t I do that quarter reading assignment earlier?GPA: 3.927Quarter 3I can still get a 3.98 by the end of senior year if I get As for the rest of high school!Still doing terribly in Science Olympiad because of procrastination.Ooooh I can audition for Freshman Select Choir again!This time, I got in and I cried out of happiness.However, it was a terrible experience to be in an activity when you have no friends. I was miserable there.My math grade is on the edge! (my math teacher didn’t round grades) BEG THE TEACHER FOR ANOTHER QUIZWorked hard and finally got an A.All of my extracurriculars are done for now! I’ll audition for the musical!I didn’t audition for the musical because I thought that I wouldn’t get in and because I didn’t think I’d do theatre for the rest of high school.Actually did the quarter reading assignment for once.All As this quarter.GPA: 3.945Quarter 4100% on last government test (34/34) A! 50% on FRQ (4/8) F. :(WHY DON’T I HAVE 100% IN CHOIR? Oh, it says “doing homework in class”. I don’t remember doing homework in class this quarter… I did it in other quarters but points were never docked… Whatever, I still have an A.Final essay exam in government! I’ll get a 5 this time!I ended up getting a 2 because my thesis wasn’t specific enough this time. :( (23/30) CI’ll join summer precalculus! It will bring up my GPA!Currently, my grade in it is a joke. I have a C+… I started off with a low A, and things got worse from there. Luckily, I still have about 6 more tests to go into the gradebook. Last year’s strategy of “complete a chapter the night before!” for summer geometry isn’t working. I get what I work for, I guess.Final government exam! I will do as the teacher says this time and study for 3 weeks!Studied the first week, then didn’t study until the night before. I didn’t get the score I hoped for, but hey you earn what you work for. I still ended up getting an A on it though (66/70).Final English test on Brave New World! At least this class taught me to italicize book titles.I didn’t study and did really bad 48/60 B-. I did pretty well on the To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo & Juliet tests so this upset me greatly, but again, you get what you work for.Final combined Government & English project!I did awful. My group was amazing and kind, but I did terrible work on my part. I’m not blaming myself entirely, but for my section I needed to talk about the current impact on citizens in the country and not the past, and my group outlined my section for me. I should’ve known better and checked the outline with the teachers though. We ended up with 85/100 B on the paper, 48/55 B+ on the presentation. Somehow my grade was still an A-.Improved my English grade because it was bad earlier as well. I didn’t do so well on a different test, and had a B for most of the quarter. The final project brought my grade up only a tiny percent.The last day of school is tomorrow! I have a capstone speech in English and it should bring my grade up to a B+. It’s pretty informal so I will probably get 20/20 on it. Even if I don’t get all the points, my grade will probably be rounded up to a B+.Ah, math (Algebra II). I did really bad on the probability test, so my grade is a 94%. It could easily go up or down. We have 3 finals in that class. Two are group finals. One was for practice with open notes which we got 57/57 (A) on, and one today was without notes. I asked my group to check my work but they didn’t because there was a lot and they said they trusted me. I said that it was a bad idea to trust me because I make silly little mistakes, but they still didn’t. Guess what? I found out afterwords that I did make a silly little mistake! There goes my grade! Tomorrow is the individual final and if I don’t do well on that, my grade and GPA are DONE FOR. I still don’t get logarithms.Currently, I have a B in English which I think will change to a B+. I have an A- in government, but my teacher rounded it to an A. I have an A- in science, but I think it will be rounded to a A.Predicted GPA: 3.9.Yeah, probably won’t end up going to CalTech…Overall, I had really high expectations but no motivation so I didn’t do very well. I just really hope I can do well the next three years, because I’m really going to need better grades. I really want to go to an Ivy or some selective college because they have better programs.If you made it to the end, thanks!

Academic essays weren’t the only thing that pushed me out of the classroom and away from the kids, but they made up a significant chunk of it.It wasn’t until later on that year when I started focusing more on alternatives to academic essay writing that I started seeing greater success with my students. What’s more, kids actually started enjoying the class.I didn’t get rid of essays outright, but looking back, I wish I had. It would have saved me so much grief. Hell, I might even still be a teacher.It’s Time for a ChangeThe way we teach writing at every level needs to be rethought. We don’t use a horse and carriage for travel anymore. We don’t use corded telephones to make phone calls anymore. And no one uses MySpace anymore.Why? Because we’ve developed better alternatives over time.Why is public school education stuck in the 1940s?Students struggle. Teachers struggle. The nation struggles. Teacher turnover is high. Throngs of new teachers rush toward schools each year wanting to make a difference only to run away quickly. We know this. And you don’t need a study to point out that the lack of consistency is detrimental to student learning.State and district tests directly affect a teacher’s job security. Districts place a great deal of importance on academic essay writing. Even I’m guilty of arguing their significance in the past. It wasn’t until I left academia and began writing for a living did I realize that the practice of writing academic essays is mostly useless.I need to make a clear distinction between essay writing and academic essaywriting. Most any form of writing on a topic is technically an essay. This blog post is an essay; many vlogs are essays; even tweets can be essays.What I’m talking about in this post is academic essay writing. I’m talking about the full-on, boring, dated, stuffy, no conversational tone, MLA/APA formatted essays topped with a bibliography or works cited if you can remember which one is which, the ones we all had hammered into us from high school through to college.A former English teacher attacking essays? Oh, the madness!Writing this might make me a marked man in the eyes of many academics. Saying “essays are useless” is enough to summon hordes of tweed-clad humanities professors to riot in the streets and demand my head. It’s heresy.But it’s also true.We Live in a Different WorldYou can make a living creating YouTube videos, posting pictures on Instagram, tweeting out 280 characters of passing thoughts.These are challenging careers that can be very rewarding. We’ve gone from a society that’s criticized people for spending too much time on Facebook to one where you get promoted for knowing how to use it.When’s the last time you checked your notifications? There could be ‘likes’ waiting for you…Yet our classrooms remain unchanged. Both schools and academics refuse to modernize. Teachers continue to push academic essay writing as though it were the most critical task you’ll ever undertake. We design pivotal tests to enforce this even though the process has no significant bearing on life outside of the classroom.Dated teaching practices are detrimental to success and need to be stopped.Even if you work hard and master the art of academic essay writing, it doesn’t amount to much. You simply end up leaving the academic bubble and learning a completely different skill set for your new job. That’s why it can be terrifying for graduating students. It’s hard to adjust to life outside of school because we’ve spent years studying ideologies, not pragmatism.College degrees feel overrated, even useless these days.More programs should emphasize practical knowledge. Instead, they focus on dated or useless material while forcing students to churn out stacks of essays in order to pass.I was part of the problem. For years I stood in front of my students and lied to them. Over and over again, I emphasized the importance of academic essay writing. When they pushed back, I repeated the same phrases like some half-dead, high priest muttering an ancient mantra:You need to learn how to write essays.You won’t succeed in the real world if you can’t write essays.Essays are the best way to help you organize your thoughts.If you want to know something, write an essay about it.Essays are soooo 2005.I’m speaking from experience. I have 2 degrees in English. I taught writing in a high school for 4 years. Leaving academia changed my views. In theory (like many things in academia) essays should be effective. Unfortunately, pragmaticism devours ideologies before breakfast.Procrastinating Makes Essays Even More PointlessI made a huge mistake as a teacher.My last year, I had everyone in my class share their essays with me on Google Drive right at the beginning. This meant that all 90-ish of my students shared the documents that would eventually turn into their essays with me. I wanted to monitor their progress over the quarter and provide help along the way.Yeah, Nah.Procrastination, if it’s cool for kittens, it’s cool for the rest of us.Nearly all my students started their essays in the last week before the due date with most starting the weekend or even the night before it was due. I watched in real time as they struggled to pump out the words.Unlike previous years, I arrived in class knowing the results. I knew procrastination was common, but seeing it happen in real time was unreal.Somethings in life you can rush; writing, especially essay writing, isn’t one of them.Learning takes time. You need to process the information you’ve acquired. Cramming doesn’t work, and writing essays the weekend or even the week before they’re due is simply just another form of cramming.Essays should be a way of gaining a more in-depth understanding of the world. Rushing them means forming opinions before you’ve had time to think thoughts through. Then you go on to the next lesson, the next semester, the next course way before you’ve had time to analyze what you’ve discovered.New knowledge needs time to set in your mind before you can move on.It’s like trying to build a house on top of a foundation that hasn’t had time to set. You risk a collapse. Only here it isn’t a house that caves in, but your perception of reality.The Real Problem with Essay Writing“I do my best work under pressure, in the last minute,” is a tiring motto far too many people believe. It’s bullshit. Brisket takes hours to smoke; wine needs weeks to ferment; cakes must cool for an eternity before frosting. Quality takes time.Essay writing needs to be an organic expedition towards deeper understanding; rushing that journey defeats the purpose. It’s like deciding to go on a peaceful hike only to sprint up the mountain, ignoring the scenery.Move along, please. No time for the sights. The goal is to finish, after all. Right?Academic essays fail because most people want to finish them as quickly as possible. It makes sense. Most people hate writing. So, when they have to do it, they want to cut corners. And the easiest way to do that is to figure out what point you’re going to argue before you start. The result is that most people learn how to find out their own version of the truth by Googling loaded questions and then rushing the final product.It’s the McDonalds version of education.To explore is to venture into the unknown. If an academic essay is an exploration into truth and you begin with not only knowing where you’re going but also knowing what you’ll experience along the way, then is it really an exploration? Do you actually learn anything?Or are you just wasting your time?Essay writing should be scary because you should be risking your beliefs. When you go on a journey, you risk changing. You risk finding out that you were wrong. You risk adopting a different view. You risk…learning.Look! I wrote another essay. It’s in here somewhere…Instead, people rush to finish assignments. They choose topics they’re familiar with, ones that are safe. They freak out about the writing portion of it and rush it. After 8 years of study (high school and college), the result is that a vast population of people hate writing and joke about how worthlessly expensive a college education is over happy hour drinks that they struggle to afford.Trust me, I know.Essays Fail to Prepare You for the Real World“Quick! The fate of the company rests in your ability to site that in APA!” — Words no one has ever uttered.How easy is it to get a job right after graduating?Most struggle. You quickly realize that no one cares about how high your GPA was or how perfect your attendance was. They want to see experience.“We’ve been waiting all this time for someone with a 4.0 GPA,” — Things never said in a real job interview.Those who don’t struggle usually worked an internship that opened doors for them, or they learned to network well. Some students leveraged existing work experience to pivot into new positions.A college education is vital for some careers. True. However, when it comes to the soft sciences and humanities, I don’t think it’s beneficial. I certainly don’t think it’s worth the investment because these programs typically don’t emphasize real-world skills. Instead, it’s just one essay after another with a few college parties peppered between late night library cramming sessions.Writing academic essays to prepare for your job is like trying to learn how to be a master carpenter by only reading IKEA furniture manuals. Sure, you can lecture about the theory of carpentry, but what good is that when you’re suddenly required to build a table.Remember, no touching. You won’t start practicals until after graduation. On your own.The main struggle students have when they graduate is that most companies prioritize hiring people with experience. You can try telling your interviewer that you understand the job requirements in theory, but it’s far safer to hire someone with a track record of proven success.And so then you get stuck working the job you had in university while learning a new set of skills so that you can find a “real job.” Meanwhile, what you studied in school sits unneeded and unused on some distant shelf in the back corner of your mind.Wasn’t university supposed to prepare you for a career?Oh, wait. Nope. Never mind. It’s only supposed to “open your mind.” But as Gary Vaynerchuk discusses in this video, if you want to open your mind, take a few months off and backpack through Europe. You’ll save money and have a better understanding of the world than you’d have if you spent 4 years crushing red Solo cups and stacking mounds of passable essays.Teachers’ Hatred of Grading Essays Is ProblematicThere are a lot of great things about teaching, grading essays isn’t one of them. These are the reasons why:It’s time-consuming. At 5 minutes an essay (lowballing here), grading 100 essays takes over 8 hours. As a result, most teachers rush through corrections and feedback.It’s ineffective. Students tend to glance at their graded essays as if they were math tests, look at the percentage, get frustrated, and then toss it in the trash.It’s frustrating. Seeing people make mistakes you’ve outlined too many times is like experiencing a symphony composed primarily of bent forks on old chalkboards.It’s exhausting. When you grade a paper, you’re seeing the student’s and your own success/failure. After a stack of them, there isn’t a sigh large enough to heave relief.It’s subjective. Two teachers can give the same paper two different grades. And boy does that create problems.This is what every teacher’s worst nightmare looks like.I learned half-way through my career that the best way to grade essays was during one-on-one conferences with students. I would call them individually to my desk and evaluate the essay there. While time-consuming, it allowed them to understand the strengths and weaknesses in real time.Feedback is essential. It helps us tweak our strategies and grow. It allows us to be better than before.Unfortunately, I discovered the highpoint of absurdity in academic grading during my graduate English program. Months of work and research would often result in a small paragraph of feedback that was pedestrian at best.I wasn’t the only one it angered. Many of us showed up ready to grow and learn, but alas, not even full-blown academics enjoyed the process.The effects of this are detrimental. Students repeat mistakes. They grow frustrated. They don’t understand why they struggle. Ultimately, they end up not only hating essay writing but writing in general. And that’s when people start turning to shadier practices.You Can Pay Someone to Write Your EssayEssay cheating is on the rise. As someone who uses several online platforms to find clients, I can tell you that I’ve seen my fair share of job postings from students looking for people to write their essays.‘“I heard you‘re looking to outsource your education. Meet me behind the library at 7 pm. Tell no one.”If essay writing brews so much disdain that students would risk academic dishonesty, jeopardizing their future careers, to pay total strangers to do it for them, then there’s a problem.The absurdity of students paying to take classes while also paying people to do their homework is ironic. Ironic and kind of terrifying.Maybe it’s time to start looking at alternatives?What Are Better Alternatives to Academic Essay Writing?No one wants to go through this.These alternatives can be challenging to implement because they’re a bit riskier and require more effort on the teacher’s part, but they pay off because they inspire creativity and teach skills students can actually use.Here are some alternatives:Blog Posts. I used to think blog writing was a joke. The world has changed. People love reading blogs. Nowadays, many of them are far more informative and better written than academic essays.Creative Writing. From poetry to short stories to novels, there are plenty of options to engage creativity and dynamic thinking.Web Content. If you had told me in 2009 that you could have a lucrative career making videos of yourself playing video games, I would have laughed in your face. Yet, here we are. Vlogs. Podcasts. Videos. Courses. Infographics. There are endlessly exciting possibilities.Collaborative Projects. Projects are perfect for pushing the skills needed for innovation. They pull people out of their comfort zones, forcing them to adapt while challenging them to work with others. I bet you could describe more projects that you’ve done than name titles of essay you’ve written.Paragraphs. Throw out the word limits. Instead, focus on how to write one paragraph exceptionally well. If you can master writing a single paragraph, anything longer is simply more of the same.There are more enjoyable and beneficial alternatives to academic essays (ignore Yoshi’s skepticism).Conversations Work BetterSometimes it’s much better just to have a conversation. People enjoy talking to others. We’re a social species after all. School is a mostly social experience. And yet, academic essay writing shuts down the dialogue.When we don’t talk (I mean really talk, as in exploring alternative ideas and concepts, throwing thoughts around, exposing them to the air outside our minds), we end up without the ability to engage in conversations.Talking about food allergies is not a conversation.The result is that these conversations end up happening in a vacuum in people’s minds. We rush to finish assignments instead of taking the time to learn and explore. After years of this, we begin to believe all of our ideas are simply “right.”You see this when you watch people grow up through school and graduate college as pretty much the same person when they arrived. They’ve never moved outside that comfort zone. They don’t know how to handle it. They’re not used to going on an intellectual journey and risking seeing the core of their most intimate beliefs challenged or changed.If academic essays were effective, then they would lead us to keep an open mind while exploring new ideas. They would teach us to embrace change. Instead, the entire format has been contorted into an immovable stencil of faux-learning that closes minds.

Who left the giant world so weakThat every pigmy kicked it as it lay.Politics and Reform"This man was a fanatic. That he was also a great poet is beside the point. This one action [dispersing pamphlets from his balcony in Ireland] of his enrolls him among the street orators, the ranters, the dispensers of social salvation who haunt parks and street corners." ( J. B. Ullman, Political Ideas of the English Romanticists, p. I63 )The goal of this answer is, in, a few words of my own, to dispel common notions and endeavor to elucidate the buried aspects and characteristics of Shelley´s poetry and prose, which are overlooked in “curricula” for reasons beyond me. Romanticism is usually depicted as “detached” and “disjoined”, but, truthfully, it is no different in this regard as any other literary period.Politics, It is among the most prominent of things, yet it is seldom mentioned. There is no distinguished poet who has been censored, blemished, in his life and after, with such intensity and accuracy, whose character was dragged through the mud, in then leading Quarterly review, managed by Tories.So, for the opening, the long lost poem of his youth, recently found, that he wrote at 18, during his short staying at Oxford, which certainly is remembered by that pompous pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, which got him expelled therefrom.By the time I will finish here, the famous lines in the Ode to the West Wind, will be replete with fresh relations.Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse,Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawaken'd earthThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?Poetical essay on the existing state of thingsEnvironmentQueen MabOther worksPOETICAL ESSAYON THEEXISTING STATE OF THINGS.Nunquam ne reponam Vexatus toties? [ Am I, who have been outraged so often, never to respond? ]The following Poem is such, as some might conceive to demand an apology; it might appear to those, who do not consider with sufficiently accurate investigation, that its ultimate view is subversive of the existing interests of Government. A moment’s attention to the sentiments on which it is founded must demonstrate the erroneousness of this supposition. Before the system which it reprobates can be ameliorated; before that peace, which, perhaps, with greater sanguineness than certainty, every good man anticipates, a total reform in the licentiousness, luxury, depravity, prejudice, which involve society, must be effected. This reform must not be the work of immature assertions of that liberty, which, as affairs now stand, no one can claim without attaining over others an undue, invidious superiority, benefiting in consequence self instead of society; it must not be the partial warfare of physical strength, which would induce the very evils which the tendency of the following Essay is calculated to eradicate; but gradual, yet decided intellectual exertions must diffuse light, as human eyes are rendered capable of bearing it. Does not every feeling mind shrink back in disgust when it beholds myriads of its fellow-beings, whom indigence, whom persecution, have deprived of the power to exert those mental capabilities which alone can distinguish them from the brutes, subjected by nature to their dominion? Is it not an insult to the All-wise, the Omnipresent intelligence of the universe, that one man should, by the abuse of that capacity which was formed to be exerted for the happiness of his fellow-creatures, deprive them of the power to use the noblest gift which his wisdom had imparted? As there is great reason to suppose that degrees of happiness will be adjudged to each, in a future state, in proportion to the degrees of virtue which have marked the life of the individual in this; as it is self-evident that the state of probation in which we now reside, is merely a preparatory stage in which to display our energies, to fit us for a more exalted state of existence, is not the deprivation of liberty the deepest, the severest of injuries?[1] Yet this is despotism.1 . These ideas of a future state of rewards and punishments, it must be confessed, do not exactly coincide with those of St. Athanasius, regarding that, by which he so liberally condemns all who differ from his own opinions to eternal torture. Independent of the evident spirit of intolerating priestcraft, which this anathema displays, I have another reason for not crediting the Reverend Father. St. Chrysostom, a saint in no less repute than the above-mentioned creed-maker, has, in his admonitions to the Bishops, whilst discussing the best method of expounding the scriptures, the following passage:“Should you meet with any part of the Bible, which either does not accord with your own sentiments, or those which you think necessary to adopt, explain it as an allegory; if then it will not bend, say that it is typical of some future event; if you find it impossible to escape thus, expound it καθ᾿ ειζονἔιαν, directly contrary."POETICAL ESSAY.Destruction marks thee! o’er the blood-stain’d heathIs faintly borne the stifled wail of death;Millions to fight compell’d, to fight or dieIn mangled heaps on War's red altar lie.The sternly wise, the mildly good, have spedTo the unfruitful mansions of the dead.Whilst fell Ambition o’er the wasted plainTriumphant guides his car—the ensanguin’d reinGlory directs; fierce brooding o’er the scene,With hatred glance, with dire unbending mien,Fell Despotism sits by the red glareOf Discord’s torch, kindling the flames of war.For thee then does the Muse her sweetest layPour ’mid the shrieks of war, ’mid dire dismay;For thee does Fame’s obstrep’rous clarion rise,Does Praise’s voice raise meanness to the skies.Are we then sunk so deep in darkest gloom,That selfish pride can virtue’s garb assume?Does real greatness in false splendour live?When narrow views the futile mind deceive,When thirst of wealth, or frantic rage for fame,Lights for awhile self-interest’s little flame,When legal murders swell the lists of pride;When glory’s views the titled idiot guide,Then will oppression’s iron influence showThe great man’s comfort as the poor man’s woe.Is’t not enough that splendour’s useless glare,Real grandeur’s bane, must mock the poor man’s stare;Is’t not enough that luxury’s varied powerMust cheat the rich parader’s irksome hour,While what they want not, what they yet retain,Adds tenfold grief, more anguished throbs of painTo each unnumbered, unrecorded woe,Which bids the bitterest tear of want to flow;But that the comfort, which despotic swayHas yet allowed, stern War must tear away.Ye cold advisers of yet colder kings,To whose fell breast no passion virtue brings,Who scheme, regardless of the poor man’s pang,Who coolly sharpen misery’s sharpest fang,Yourselves secure. Your’s is the power to breatheO’er all the world the infectious blast of death,To snatch at fame, to reap red murder’s spoil,Receive the injured with a courtier’s smile,Make a tired nation bless the oppressor’s name,And for injustice snatch the meed of fame.Were fetters made for anguish, for despair?Must starving wretches torment, misery bear?Who, mad with grief, have snatched from grandeur’s store,What grandeur’s hand had snatched from them before.Yet shall the vices of the great pass on,Vices as glaring as the noon-day sun,Shall rank corruption pass unheeded by,Shall flattery’s voice ascend the wearied sky;And shall no patriot tear the veil awayWhich hides these vices from the face of day?Is public virtue dead?—is courage gone?Bows its fair form at fell oppression’s throne?Yes! it’s torn away—the crimes appear,Expiring Freedom asks a parting tear,A powerful hand unrolls the guilt-stain’d veil,A powerful voice floats on the tainted gale,Rising corruption’s error from beneath,A shape of glory checks the course of death;It spreads its shield o’er freedom’s prostrate form,Its glance disperses envy’s gathering storm;No trophied bust need tell thy sainted name,No herald blazon to the world thy fame,Nor scrolls essay an endless meed to give;In grateful memory still thy deeds must live.No sculptured marble shall be raised to thee,The hearts of England will thy memoirs be.To thee the Muse attunes no venal lyre,No thirsts of gold the vocal lays inspire;No interests plead, no fiery passions swell;Whilst to thy praise she wakes her feeble shell,She need not speak it, for the pen of fameOn every heart has written BURDETT’S name;For thou art he, who dared in tumult’s hour,Dauntless thy tide of eloquence to pour;Who, fearless, stemmed stern Despotism’s course [erratum: source],Who traced Oppression to its foulest course;Who bade Ambition tremble on its throne—How could I virtue name, how yet pass onThy name!—though fruitless thy divine essay,Though vain thy war against fell power’s array,Thou taintless emanation from the sky!Thou purest spark of fires which never die!Yet let me pause, yet turn aside to weepWhere virtue, genius, wit, with Franklin sleep;To bend in mute affliction o’er the graveWhere lies the great, the virtuous, and the brave;Still let us hope in Heaven (for Heaven there is)That sainted spirit tastes ethereal bliss,That sainted spirit the reward receives,Which endless goodness to its votary gives.Thine be the meed to purest virtue due—Alas! the prospect closes to the view.Visions of horror croud upon my sight,They shed around their forms substantial night.Oppressors’ venal minions! hence, avaunt!Think not the soul of Patriotism to daunt;Though hot with gore from India’s wasted plains,Some Chief, in triumph, guides the tightened reins;Though disembodied from this mortal coil,Pitt lends to each smooth rogue a courtier’s smile;Yet does not that severer frown withhold,Which, though impervious to the power of gold,Could daunt the injured wretch, could turn the poorUnheard, unnoticed, from the statesman’s doorThis is the spirit which can reckless tellThe fatal trump of useless war to swell;Can bid Fame’s loudest voice awake his praise,Can boldly snatch the honorary bays.Gifts to reward a ruthless, murderous deed,A crime for which some poorer rogue must bleed.Is this then justice?—stretch thy powerful arm,Patriot, dissolve the frightful [erratum: frigorific] charm,Awake thy loudest thunder, dash the brandOf stern Oppression from the Tyrant’s hand;Let reason mount the Despot’s mouldering throne,And bid an injured nation cease to moan.Why then, since justice petty crimes can thrall,Should not its power extend to each, to all?If he who murders one to death is due,Should not the great destroyer perish too?The wretch beneath whose influence millions bleed?And yet encomium is the villain’s meed.His crime the smooth-tongued flatterers conquest name,Loud in his praises swell the notes of Fame.Oblivion marks the murdering poor man’s tomb,Brood o’er his memory contempt and gloom;His crimes are blazoned in deformed array,His virtues sink, they fade for aye away.Snatch then the sword from nerveless virtue’s hand,Boldly grasp native jurisdiction’s brand;For justice, poisoned at its source, must yieldThe power to each its shivered sword to wield,To dash oppression from the throne of vice,To nip the buds of slavery as they rise.Does jurisprudence slighter crimes restrain,And seek their vices to controul in vain?Kings are but men, if thirst of meanest swayHas not that title even snatched away.—The fainting Indian, on his native plains,Writhes to superior power’s unnumbered pains;The Asian, in the blushing face of day,His wife, his child, sees sternly torn away;Yet dares not to revenge, while war’s dread roarFloats, in long echoing, on the blood-stain’d shore.In Europe too wild ruin rushes fast:See! like a meteor on the midnight blast,Or evil spirit brooding over gore,Napoleon calm can war, can misery pour.May curses blast thee; and in thee the breedWhich forces, which compels, a world to bleed;May that destruction, which ’tis thine to spread,Descend with ten-fold fury on thy head.Oh! may the death, which marks thy fell career,In thine own heart’s blood bathe the empoisoned spear;May long remorse protract thy latest groan,Then shall Oppression tremble on its throne.Yet this alone were vain; Freedom requiresA torch more bright to light its fading fires;Man must assert his native rights, must sayWe take from Monarchs’ hand the granted sway;Oppressive law no more shall power retain,Peace, love, and concord, once shall rule again,And heal the anguish of a suffering world;Then, then shall things, which now confusedly hurled,Seem Chaos, be resolved to order’s sway,And errors night be turned to virtue’s day.—2. EnvironmentIf I follow the footsteps of American historian and literary critic Allene Gregory and divide the period into roughly five intervals;1789–1791: General approval and warm welcome of the changes, naturally, among the poorer classes. At the time the expect result was constitutional monarchy on Whig principles. Two of the titans, Wordsworth and Coleridge endorsed it. ( Shelley´s criticism of both pertains to it, as both denounced it later. )1792: Speedily declining confidence, with the losing grip of the bourgeois and the rise of the Girondins and Jacobins, a Republic was born.1793–4: The climax, declaration of war, censorship and domestic suppression of any sympathy. Now political leaders could be arrested without trial, and in 1795 the law of treason made any mass gatherings in favor of reform nigh impossible.“The war period from 1795 to 1815 may be said to constitute a fourth period in the history of English Revolutionism. The last stage, from the battle of Waterloo to 1820, was the worst of the reaction, when the stimuli of anger, fear, and patriotism had ceased, and a heavy pall of disillusionment and conservatism without ideals seemed to have settled over the whole country.” ( The French Revolution and the English Novel, Gregory )These simple outlines will have to suffice.2. Queen MabI think there is no need to mention the harshness of these lines once upon the time;Read them, read them all!'Behold yon sterile spot,  Where now the wandering Arab's tent  Flaps in the desert blast!  There once old Salem's haughty fane  Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes,  And in the blushing face of day  Exposed its shameful glory. 140  Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed  The building of that fane; and many a father,  Worn out with toil and slavery, implored  The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth  And spare his children the detested task  Of piling stone on stone and poisoning  The choicest days of life  To soothe a dotard's vanity.  There an inhuman and uncultured race  Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; 150  They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb  The unborn child--old age and infancy  Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms  Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends!  But what was he who taught them that the God  Of Nature and benevolence had given  A special sanction to the trade of blood?  His name and theirs are fading, and the tales  Of this barbarian nation, which imposture  Recites till terror credits, are pursuing 160  Itself into forgetfulness.  - - 'Behold a gorgeous palace that amid  Yon populous city rears its thousand towers  And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops  Of sentinels in stern and silent ranks  Encompass it around; the dweller there  Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not  The curses of the fatherless, the groans  Of those who have no friend? He passes on--  The King, the wearer of a gilded chain 30  That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool  Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave  Even to the basest appetites--that man  Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles  At the deep curses which the destitute  Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy  Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan  But for those morsels which his wantonness  Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save  All that they love from famine; when he hears 40  The tale of horror, to some ready-made face  Of hypocritical assent he turns,  Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,  Flushes his bloated cheek.   Now to the meal  Of silence, grandeur and excess he drags  His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,  Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled  From every clime could force the loathing sense  To overcome satiety,--if wealth  The spring it draws from poisons not,--or vice, 50  Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not  Its food to deadliest venom; then that king  Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils  His unforced task, when he returns at even  And by the blazing faggot meets again  Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,  Tastes not a sweeter meal.   Behold him now  Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain  Reels dizzily awhile; but ah! too soon  The slumber of intemperance subsides, 60  And conscience, that undying serpent, calls  Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task.  Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye--  Oh! mark that deadly visage!'  KING  'No cessation!  Oh! must this last forever! Awful death,  I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!--Not one moment  Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessèd Peace,  Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity  In penury and dungeons? Wherefore lurkest  With danger, death, and solitude; yet shun'st 70  The palace I have built thee? Sacred Peace!  Oh, visit me but once,--but pitying shed  One drop of balm upon my withered soul!'  THE FAIRY  'Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,  And Peace defileth not her snowy robes  In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;  His slumbers are but varied agonies;  They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.  There needeth not the hell that bigots frame  To punish those who err; earth in itself 80  Contains at once the evil and the cure;  And all-sufficing Nature can chastise  Those who transgress her law; she only knows  How justly to proportion to the fault  The punishment it merits.   Is it strange  That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?  Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug  The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange  That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,  Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured 90  Within a splendid prison whose stern bounds  Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth,  His soul asserts not its humanity?  That man's mild nature rises not in war  Against a king's employ? No--'tis not strange.  He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives  Just as his father did; the unconquered powers  Of precedent and custom interpose  Between a king and virtue. Stranger yet,  To those who know not Nature nor deduce 100  The future from the present, it may seem,  That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes  Of this unnatural being, not one wretch,  Whose children famish and whose nuptial bed  Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm  To dash him from his throne!   Those gilded flies  That, basking in the sunshine of a court,  Fatten on its corruption! what are they?--  The drones of the community; they feed  On the mechanic's labor; the starved hind 110  For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield  Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,  Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes  A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,  Drags out in labor a protracted death  To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil  That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.   Whence, thinkest thou, kings and parasites arose?  Whence that unnatural line of drones who heap  Toil and unvanquishable penury 120  On those who build their palaces and bring  Their daily bread?--From vice, black loathsome vice;  From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;  From all that genders misery, and makes  Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust,  Revenge, and murder.--And when reason's voice,  Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked  The nations; and mankind perceive that vice  Is discord, war and misery; that virtue  Is peace and happiness and harmony; 130  When man's maturer nature shall disdain  The playthings of its childhood;--kingly glare  Will lose its power to dazzle, its authority  Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne  Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall,  Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade  Shall be as hateful and unprofitable  As that of truth is now.   Where is the fame  Which the vain-glorious mighty of the earth  Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound 140  From time's light footfall, the minutest wave  That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing  The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! to-day  Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze  That flashes desolation, strong the arm  That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!  That mandate is a thunder-peal that died  In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash  On which the midnight closed; and on that arm  The worm has made his meal. - - I see thee shrink, 70  Surpassing Spirit!--wert thou human else?  I see a shade of doubt and horror fleet  Across thy stainless features; yet fear not;  This is no unconnected misery,  Nor stands uncaused and irretrievable.  Man's evil nature, that apology  Which kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set up  For their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the blood  Which desolates the discord-wasted land.  From kings and priests and statesmen war arose, 80  Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe,  Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe  Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall;  And where its venomed exhalations spread  Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay  Quenching the serpent's famine, and their bones  Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast,  A garden shall arise, in loveliness  Surpassing fabled Eden. - - 'War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,  The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade,  And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones 170  Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore,  The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean.  Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround  Their palaces, participate the crimes  That force defends and from a nation's rage  Secures the crown, which all the curses reach  That famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe.  These are the hired bravos who defend  The tyrant's throne -- the bullies of his fear;  These are the sinks and channels of worst vice, 180  The refuse of society, the dregs  Of all that is most vile; their cold hearts blend  Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride,  All that is mean and villainous with rage  Which hopelessness of good and self-contempt  Alone might kindle; they are decked in wealth,  Honor and power, then are sent abroad  To do their work. The pestilence that stalks  In gloomy triumph through some eastern land  Is less destroying. They cajole with gold 190  And promises of fame the thoughtless youth  Already crushed with servitude; he knows  His wretchedness too late, and cherishes  Repentance for his ruin, when his doom  Is sealed in gold and blood!  Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare  The feet of justice in the toils of law,  Stand ready to oppress the weaker still,  And right or wrong will vindicate for gold,  Sneering at public virtue, which beneath 200  Their pitiless tread lies torn and trampled where  Honor sits smiling at the sale of truth.   'Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites,  Without a hope, a passion or a love,  Who through a life of luxury and lies  Have crept by flattery to the seats of power,  Support the system whence their honors flow.  They have three words--well tyrants know their use,  Well pay them for the loan with usury  Torn from a bleeding world!--God, Hell and Heaven: 210  A vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend,  Whose mercy is a nickname for the rage  Of tameless tigers hungering for blood;  Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,  Where poisonous and undying worms prolong  Eternal misery to those hapless slaves  Whose life has been a penance for its crimes;  And Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie  Their human nature, quake, believe and cringe  Before the mockeries of earthly power. 220   'These tools the tyrant tempers to his work,  Wields in his wrath, and as he wills destroys,  Omnipotent in wickedness; the while  Youth springs, age moulders, manhood tamely does  His bidding, bribed by short-lived joys to lend  Force to the weakness of his trembling arm.  They rise, they fall; one generation comes  Yielding its harvest to destruction's scythe.  It fades, another blossoms; yet behold!  Red glows the tyrant's stamp-mark on its bloom, 230  Withering and cankering deep its passive prime.  He has invented lying words and modes,  Empty and vain as his own coreless heart;  Evasive meanings, nothings of much sound,  To lure the heedless victim to the toils  Spread round the valley of its paradise.  'Look to thyself, priest, conqueror or prince!  Whether thy trade is falsehood, and thy lusts  Deep wallow in the earnings of the poor,  With whom thy master was; or thou delight'st 240  In numbering o'er the myriads of thy slain,  All misery weighing nothing in the scale  Against thy short-lived fame; or thou dost load  With cowardice and crime the groaning land,  A pomp-fed king. Look to thy wretched self!  Ay, art thou not the veriest slave that e'er  Crawled on the loathing earth? Are not thy days  Days of unsatisfying listlessness?  Dost thou not cry, ere night's long rack is o'er,  "When will the morning come?" Is not thy youth 250  A vain and feverish dream of sensualism?  Thy manhood blighted with unripe disease?  Are not thy views of unregretted death  Drear, comfortless and horrible? Thy mind,  Is it not morbid as thy nerveless frame,  Incapable of judgment, hope or love?  And dost thou wish the errors to survive,  That bar thee from all sympathies of good,  After the miserable interest  Thou hold'st in their protraction? When the grave 260  Has swallowed up thy memory and thyself,  Dost thou desire the bane that poisons earth  To twine its roots around thy coffined clay,  Spring from thy bones, and blossom on thy tomb,  That of its fruit thy babes may eat and die? - - 'Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,  The signet of its all-enslaving power,  Upon a shining ore, and called it gold;  Before whose image bow the vulgar great,  The vainly rich, the miserable proud,  The mob of peasants, nobles, priests and kings,  And with blind feelings reverence the power  That grinds them to the dust of misery. 60  But in the temple of their hireling hearts  Gold is a living god and rules in scorn  All earthly things but virtue.   'Since tyrants by the sale of human life  Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and fame  To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride,  Success has sanctioned to a credulous world  The ruin, the disgrace, the woe of war.  His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes  The despot numbers; from his cabinet 70  These puppets of his schemes he moves at will,  Even as the slaves by force or famine driven,  Beneath a vulgar master, to perform  A task of cold and brutal drudgery;--  Hardened to hope, insensible to fear,  Scarce living pulleys of a dead machine,  Mere wheels of work and articles of trade,  That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth! - -  And statesmen boast  Of wealth! The wordy eloquence that lives  After the ruin of their hearts, can gild  The bitter poison of a nation's woe;  Can turn the worship of the servile mob  To their corrupt and glaring idol, fame,  From virtue, trampled by its iron tread,--  Although its dazzling pedestal be raised 100  Amid the horrors of a limb-strewn field,  With desolated dwellings smoking round.  The man of ease, who, by his warm fireside,  To deeds of charitable intercourse  And bare fulfilment of the common laws  Of decency and prejudice confines  The struggling nature of his human heart,  Is duped by their cold sophistry; he sheds  A passing tear perchance upon the wreck  Of earthly peace, when near his dwelling's door 110  The frightful waves are driven, -- when his son  Is murdered by the tyrant, or religion  Drives his wife raving mad. But the poor man  Whose life is misery, and fear and care;  Whom the morn wakens but to fruitless toil;  Who ever hears his famished offspring's scream;  Whom their pale mother's uncomplaining gaze  Forever meets, and the proud rich man's eye  Flashing command, and the heart-breaking scene  Of thousands like himself;--he little heeds 120  The rhetoric of tyranny; his hate  Is quenchless as his wrongs; he laughs to scorn  The vain and bitter mockery of words,  Feeling the horror of the tyrant's deeds,  And unrestrained but by the arm of power,  That knows and dreads his enmity.  - - 'All things are sold: the very light of heaven  Is venal; earth's unsparing gifts of love,  The smallest and most despicable things  That lurk in the abysses of the deep, 180  All objects of our life, even life itself,  And the poor pittance which the laws allow  Of liberty, the fellowship of man,  Those duties which his heart of human love  Should urge him to perform instinctively,  Are bought and sold as in a public mart  Of undisguising Selfishness, that sets  On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign.  Even love is sold; the solace of all woe  Is turned to deadliest agony, old age 190  Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms,  And youth's corrupted impulses prepare  A life of horror from the blighting bane  Of commerce; whilst the pestilence that springs  From unenjoying sensualism, has filled  All human life with hydra-headed woes.   'Falsehood demands but gold to pay the pangs  Of outraged conscience; for the slavish priest  Sets no great value on his hireling faith;  A little passing pomp, some servile souls, 200  Whom cowardice itself might safely chain  Or the spare mite of avarice could bribe  To deck the triumph of their languid zeal,  Can make him minister to tyranny.  More daring crime requires a loftier meed.  Without a shudder the slave-soldier lends  His arm to murderous deeds, and steels his heart,  When the dread eloquence of dying men,  Low mingling on the lonely field of fame,  Assails that nature whose applause he sells 210  For the gross blessings of the patriot mob,  For the vile gratitude of heartless kings,  And for a cold world's good word,--viler still! - - Awhile thou stood'st  Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up  The elements of all that thou didst know;  The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign,  The budding of the heaven-breathing trees,  The eternal orbs that beautify the night,  The sunrise, and the setting of the moon,  Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease, 100  And all their causes, to an abstract point  Converging thou didst bend, and called it God!  The self-sufficing, the omnipotent,  The merciful, and the avenging God!  Who, prototype of human misrule, sits  High in heaven's realm, upon a golden throne,  Even like an earthly king; and whose dread work,  Hell, gapes forever for the unhappy slaves  Of fate, whom he created in his sport  To triumph in their torments when they fell! 110  Earth heard the name; earth trembled as the smoke  Of his revenge ascended up to heaven,  Blotting the constellations; and the cries  Of millions butchered in sweet confidence  And unsuspecting peace, even when the bonds  Of safety were confirmed by wordy oaths  Sworn in his dreadful name, rung through the land;  Whilst innocent babes writhed on thy stubborn spear,  And thou didst laugh to hear the mother's shriek  Of maniac gladness, as the sacred steel 120  Felt cold in her torn entrails!   'Religion! thou wert then in manhood's prime;  But age crept on; one God would not suffice  For senile puerility; thou framedst  A tale to suit thy dotage and to glut  Thy misery-thirsting soul, that the mad fiend  Thy wickedness had pictured might afford  A plea for sating the unnatural thirst  For murder, rapine, violence and crime,  That still consumed thy being, even when 130  Thou heard'st the step of fate; that flames might light  Thy funeral scene; and the shrill horrent shrieks  Of parents dying on the pile that burned  To light their children to thy paths, the roar  Of the encircling flames, the exulting cries  Of thine apostles loud commingling there,  Might sate thine hungry ear  Even on the bed of death! - - SPIRIT  'I was an infant when my mother went  To see an atheist burned. She took me there.  The dark-robed priests were met around the pile;  The multitude was gazing silently;  And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,  Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,  Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth;  The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;  His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;  His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob 10  Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.  "Weep not, child!" cried my mother, "for that man  Has said, There is no God."'  FAIRY  'There is no God!  Nature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed.  Let heaven and earth, let man's revolving race,  His ceaseless generations, tell their tale;  Let every part depending on the chain  That links it to the whole, point to the hand  That grasps its term! Let every seed that falls  In silent eloquence unfold its store 20  Of argument; infinity within,  Infinity without, belie creation;  The exterminable spirit it contains  Is Nature's only God; but human pride  Is skilful to invent most serious names  To hide its ignorance.  'The name of God  Has fenced about all crime with holiness,  Himself the creature of his worshippers,  Whose names and attributes and passions change,  Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord, 30  Even with the human dupes who build his shrines,  Still serving o'er the war-polluted world  For desolation's watchword; whether hosts  Stain his death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on  Triumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise  A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans;  Or countless partners of his power divide  His tyranny to weakness; or the smoke  Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness,  Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, 40  Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven  In honor of his name; or, last and worst,  Earth groans beneath religion's iron age,  And priests dare babble of a God of peace,  Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,  Murdering the while, uprooting every germ  Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,  Making the earth a slaughter-house! - - SPIRIT  'Is there a God?'  AHASUERUS  'Is there a God!--ay, an almighty God,  And vengeful as almighty! Once his voice  Was heard on earth; earth shuddered at the sound;  The fiery-visaged firmament expressed  Abhorrence, and the grave of Nature yawned  To swallow all the dauntless and the good  That dared to hurl defiance at his throne, 90  Girt as it was with power. None but slaves  Survived,--cold-blooded slaves, who did the work  Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls  No honest indignation ever urged  To elevated daring, to one deed  Which gross and sensual self did not pollute.  These slaves built temples for the omnipotent fiend,  Gorgeous and vast; the costly altars smoked  With human blood, and hideous pæans rung  Through all the long-drawn aisles. A murderer heard 100  His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts  Had raised him to his eminence in power,  Accomplice of omnipotence in crime  And confidant of the all-knowing one.  These were Jehovah's words.   '"From an eternity of idleness  I, God, awoke; in seven days' toil made earth  From nothing; rested, and created man;  I placed him in a paradise, and there  Planted the tree of evil, so that he 110  Might eat and perish, and my soul procure  Wherewith to sate its malice and to turn,  Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth,  All misery to my fame. The race of men,  Chosen to my honor, with impunity  May sate the lusts I planted in their heart.  Here I command thee hence to lead them on,  Until with hardened feet their conquering troops  Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood,  And make my name be dreaded through the land. 120  Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe  Shall be the doom of their eternal souls,  With every soul on this ungrateful earth,  Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong,--even all  Shall perish, to fulfil the blind revenge  (Which you, to men, call justice) of their God."   'The murderer's brow  Quivered with horror.   '"God omnipotent,  Is there no mercy? must our punishment  Be endless? will long ages roll away, 130  And see no term? Oh! wherefore hast thou made  In mockery and wrath this evil earth?  Mercy becomes the powerful--be but just!  O God! repent and save!"   '"One way remains:  I will beget a son and he shall bear  The sins of all the world; he shall arise  In an unnoticed corner of the earth,  And there shall die upon a cross, and purge  The universal crime; so that the few  On whom my grace descends, those who are marked 140  As vessels to the honor of their God,  May credit this strange sacrifice and save  Their souls alive. Millions shall live and die,  Who ne'er shall call upon their Saviour's name,  But, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave,  Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale,  Such as the nurses frighten babes withal;  These in a gulf of anguish and of flame  Shall curse their reprobation endlessly,  Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, 150  Even on their beds of torment where they howl,  My honor and the justice of their doom.  What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts  Of purity, with radiant genius bright  Or lit with human reason's earthly ray?  Many are called, but few will I elect.  Do thou my bidding, Moses!"   'Even the murderer's cheek  Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips  Scarce faintly uttered--"O almighty one,  I tremble and obey!" 160  - - 'Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand,  So welcome when the tyrant is awake,  So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch burns;  'T is but the voyage of a darksome hour,  The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.  Death is no foe to virtue; earth has seen  Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,  Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there,  And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.  Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene 180  Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?  Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still,  When, to the moonlight walk by Henry led,  Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death?  And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast,  Listening supinely to a bigot's creed,  Or tamely crouching to the tyrant's rod,  Whose iron thongs are red with human gore?  Never: but bravely bearing on, thy will  Is destined an eternal war to wage 190  With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot  The germs of misery from the human heart.  Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe  The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,  Whose impotence an easy pardon gains,  Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease;  Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy  Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,  When fenced by power and master of the world.  Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, 200  Free from heart-withering custom's cold control,  Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.  Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,  And therefore art thou worthy of the boon  Which thou hast now received; virtue shall keep  Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,  And many days of beaming hope shall bless  Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.  Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy,  Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch 210  Light, life and rapture from thy smile!' And a section from the notes Even Love is soldNot even the intercourse of the sexes is exempt from the despotism of positive institution. Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary affections of our nature. Love is inevitably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. Love withers under constraint: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited, where its votaries live in confidence, equality, and unreserve.How long then ought the sexual connection to last? what law ought to specify the extent of the grievances which should limit its duration? A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other: any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration. How odious an usurpation of the right of private judgement should that law be considered which should make the ties of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices, the inconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for improvement of the human mind. And by so much would the fetters of love be heavier and more unendurable than those of friendship, as love is more vehement and capricious, more dependent on those delicate peculiarities of imagination, and less capable of reduction to the ostensible merits of the object.The state of society in which we exist is a mixture of feudal savageness and imperfect civilization. The narrow and unenlightened morality of the Christian religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not even until lately that mankind have admitted that happiness is the sole end of the science of ethics, as of all other sciences; and that the fanatical idea of mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been discarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant collegian adduce, in favour of Christianity, it's hostility to every worldly feeling!*But if happiness be the object of morality, of all human unions and and disunions; if the worthiness of every action is to be estimated by the quantity of pleasurable sensation it is calculated to produce, then the connection of the sexes is so long sacred as it contributes to the comfort of the parties, and is naturally dissolved when its evils are greater than its benefits. There is nothing immoral in this separation. Constancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independently of the pleasure it confers, and partakes of the temporizing spirit of vice in proportion as it endures tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of its indiscreet choice. Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow, in both cases, excludes us from all inquiry. The language of the votarist is this: The woman I now love may be infinitely inferior to many others; the creed I now profess may be a mass of errors and absurdities; but I exclude myself from all future information as to the amiability of the one and the truth of the other, resolving blindly, and in spite of conviction, to adhere to them. Is this the language of delicacy and reason? Is the love of such a frigid heart of more worth than its belief?The present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of instances, than make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy and virtue, unhappily united to one whom they find it impossible to love, spend the loveliest season of their life in unproductive efforts to appear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of their partner or the welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less generosity and refinement openly avow their disappointment, and linger out the remnant of that union, which only death can dissolve, in a state of incurable bickering and hostility. The early education of their children takes its colour from the squabbles of the parents; they are nursed in a systematic school of ill-humour, violence, and falsehood. Had they been suffered to part at the moment when indifference rendered their union irksome, they would have been spared many years of misery: they would have connected themselves more suitably, and would have found that happiness in the society of more congenial partners which is for ever denied them by the despotism of marriage. They would have been separately useful and happy members of society, who, whilst united, were miserable and rendered misanthropical by misery. The conviction that wedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations to the perverse: they indulge without restraint in acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim is without appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual ill-temper would terminate in separation, and would check this vicious and dangerous propensity.Prostitution is the legitimate offspring of marriage and its accompanying errors. Women, for no other crime than having followed the dictates of a natural appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts and sympathies of society. It is less venial than murder; and the punishment which is inflicted on her who destroys her child to escape reproach is lighter than the life of agony and disease to which the prostitute is irrecoverably doomed. Has a woman obeyed the impulse of unerring nature;--society declares war against her, pitiless and eternal war: she must be the tame slave, she must make no reprisals; theirs is the right of persecution, hers the duty of endurance. She lives a life of infamy: the loud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all return. She dies of long and lingering disease: yet she is in fault, she is the criminal, she the froward and untamable child, --and society, forsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion from her undefiled bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of her own creation; she is employed in anathematizing the vice to-day, which yesterday she was the most zealous to teach. Thus is formed one-tenth of the population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold. Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society of modest and accomplished women, associate exquisite and delicate sensibilities whose existence coldhearted worldlings have denied; annihilating all genuine passion, and debasing that to a selfish feeling which is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their body and mind alike crumble into a hideous wreck of humanity; idiocy and disease become perpetuated in their miserable offspring, and distant generations suffer for the bigoted morality of their forefathers. Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to domestic happiness, than marriage.I conceive that from the abolition of marriage, the fit and natural arrangement of sexual connection would result. I by no means assert that the intercourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary, it appears, from the relation of parent to child, that this union is generally of long duration and marked above all others with generosity and self-devotion. But this is a subject which it is perhaps premature to discuss. That which will result from the abolition of marriage will be natural and right; because choice and change will be exempted from restraint.In fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical code of misery and servitude: the genius of human happiness must tear every leaf from the accursed book of God ere man can read the inscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays and finery, start from her own disgusting image should she look in the mirror of nature!*The first Christian emperor made a law by which seduction was punished with death; if the female pleaded her own consent, she also was punished with death; if the parents endeavoured to screen the criminals, they were banished and their estates were confiscated, the slaves who might be accessory were burned alive, or forced to swallow melted lead. The very offspring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the sentence.--Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., vol. ii, p. 210. See also, for the hatred of the primitive Christians to love and even marriage, p. 269.3. Other works.I have re-read Prometheus Unbound .. .and it seems to me to have an even more certain place than I had thought, among the sacred books of the world. I remember going to a learned scholar to ask about its deep meanings, which I felt more than understood, and his telling me that it was Godwin's Political Justice put into rhyme, and that Shelley was a crude revolutionist, and believed that the overturning of kings and priests would regenerate mankind." … one soon comes to understand that his liberty was so much more than the liberty of Political Justice, that it was one with Intellectual Beauty, and that the regeneration he foresaw was so much more than the regeneration many political dreamers have foreseen, that it could not come in its perfection till the hours bore 'Time to his grave in eternity.'( W. B. Yeats, Ideas of Good and Evil, p. 91 )Prometheus unbound, The Cenci, The Mask of Anarchy, The Revolt of Islam ( Or originally Leon and Cythna ) —- Please, do not be one of those douches and draw assumptions, based on today, from the title. It is not about that.Shelley is the romantic to be read today!Who left the giant world so weakThat every pigmy kicked it as it lay.Cookie question. Who is the pigmy?——