"I hate oppression with a hate profound,
And wheresoever in the wide world round,
Beneath a traitor king, a cruel sky,
I hear appeal a strangled people's cry—
Where mother Greece, by Christian kings betrayed
To butcher Turks, hangs disembowelled, flayed.
Where Ireland, bleeding on her Cross expires,
And German truth in vain fronts royal liars.
"Oh then, upon their heads my curse I launch,
These kings whose steeds pace bloody to the paunch:
I feel the poet speaks their judgment, and
The indignant Muse, with unrelenting hand,
Shall bind them pilloried to their thrones of shame,
And press their dastard crowns to shape a name
That on their brows the poet's hand shall trace—
So Man may read their calling in their face."