Percy Bysshe Shelley

 Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at St Peter's Field, Manchester 1819, Shelley begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time "God, and King, and Law" – and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action: "Let a great assembly be, of the fearless, of the free". The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protestors do not raise an arm against their assailants:

"Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war.

And if then the tyrants dare,

Let them ride among you there,

Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,

What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise

Look upon them as they slay

Till their rage has died away

Then they will return with shame

To the place from which they came,

And the blood thus shed will speak

In hot blushes on their cheek.

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you-

Ye are many — they are few"