Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte
1I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
2To think that a most unambitious slave,
3Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
4Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
5Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer
6A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept
7In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,
8For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
9Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
10And stifled thee, their minister. I know
11Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
12That Virtue owns a more eternal foe
13Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
14And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/feelings-of-a-republican-on-the-fall-of-bonaparte
Quick facts
- Poem
- Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Dreams & Sleep
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
- Source record
- PoetryDBFeelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 a6fbcb953417bafd…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.