English poem
Fragment: 'What Men Gain Fairly'.
What men gain fairly—that they should possess, And children may inherit idleness, From him who earns it—This is understood; Private injustice may be general good. But he who gains by base and armed wrong, Or guilty fraud, or base compliances, May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress Is stripped from a convicted thief; and he Left in the nakedness of infamy.
More by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Fragment: 'The Death Knell Is Ringing'.
- Fragment: 'The Viewless and Invisible Consequence'
- Fragment: 'Unrisen Splendour of the Brightest Sun'
- Fragment: 'Wake The Serpent Not'.
- Fragment: 'When a Lover Clasps His Fairest'
- Fragment: 'When Soft Winds And Sunny Skies'.
- Fragment: 'Ye Gentle Visitations Of Calm Thought'.
- Fragment: A Roman's Chamber.