Rise like Lions after slumber in unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew… Ye are many — they are few

The political poem “Mask of Anarchy” was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 when pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters in Manchester were brutally dispersed by armed cavalry. This is a powerful call for freedom, political representation and nonviolent resistance against oppression. These are its final verses:

And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again — again — again–

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number–
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you–
Ye are many — they are few.