Lyric Poem · Nature
Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819
As from an ancestral oak
Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell, and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion: —
As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly yew
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,
And the stars are none, or few: —
As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,
For the negro-ship, whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while —
Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,
Two scorpions under one wet stone,
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Two vipers tangled into one.
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“Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/similes-for-two-political-characters-of-1819
Quick facts
- Poem
- Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 21 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, War & Remembrance
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
- 21 lines · 5 stanzas of 1–5 lines
- Line length
- Lines run 7-9 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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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
- PoetryDBSimiles for Two Political Characters of 1819 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 994919b3ef3a8b4e…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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