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Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

Stanza From a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1Tremble, Kings despised of man!

2Ye traitors to your Country,

3Tremble! Your parricidal plan

4At length shall meet its destiny...

5We all are soldiers fit to fight,

6But if we sink in glory's night

7Our mother Earth will give ye new

8The brilliant pathway to pursue

9Which leads to Death or Victory...

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Quick facts

Poem
Stanza From a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn
Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length
9 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Death & Loss, War & Remembrance, Short

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
9 lines · one 9-line stanza
Line length
Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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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
PoetryDBStanza From a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn 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 f713daf0eef94d2d
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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