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FRAGMENT: ‘WHAT MEN GAIN FAIRLY’. (Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman).—ED.)

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

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.

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