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 murr… - Percy Bysshe Shelley

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, — Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, — Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.

With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear, — Till death like sleep might steal on me
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.