th the time it was written. The old, mad, blind, despisd, and dying King could be no other than King George, the princes, the dregs of their dull race could possibly mean the Prince of Wales, however, this reader believes it to be referring to the old order, the nobility of the time who Shelley says are Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, but leech-like to their fainting country cling again, if we read this in the context of the time the people were oppressed, hungry and hopeless. He goes on by commenting on the army as being a two edged sword, here he is obviously making reference to the Peterloo massacre in Manchester of 1819, thousands of people had met on St Peters fields for a meeting on parliamentary reform when mounted troops charged on them killing and maiming many people (Romantic Chronology, 2000). His use of metaphors Princes as leeches in muddy water, the army as a two edged sword, religion as a sealed book leave the reader in no doubt as to how the speaker feels about the state of the nation. In the last two couplet of the verse are graves, from which a glorious phantom/may burst, to illuminate our tempestuous day the speaker gives no clue as to what the phantom may be, however, given the blatant political bent of the poem its not hard to imagine that he is hinting at liberty through revolution. Wordsworth also wrote about the state of the nation in his poem London 1802 Wordsworth calls for the soul of Milton, saying that he should be alive at this moment of history, for England needs him. England is stagnant and seen to be selfish, Milton could raise her up again. Every institution is mentioned in the list of the vices of the era England hath need of thee; she is a fen/of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen leaves the reader to believe that the altar represents religion, the sword is the military and the pen is representative of literature. When he speaks of inward happiness he seems to identify it as a speci...
