The Masque of Anarchy

The epigraph on the cover of the first edition is from Shelley's The Revolt of Islam (1818): "Hope is strong; Justice and Truth their winged child have found."

The guilty soldiers, he says, will return shamefully to society, where "blood thus shed will speak / In hot blushes on their cheek".

Women will point out the murderers on the streets, their former friends will shun them, and honourable soldiers will turn away from those responsible for the massacre, "ashamed of such base company".

A version was taken up by Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience, and later by Mahatma Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha.

Led by Anarchy, a skeleton with a crown, they try to take over England, but are slain by a mysterious armoured figure who arises from a mist.

The old laws of England—they Whose reverend heads with age are grey, Children of a wiser day; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo—Liberty!

[9] Author, educator, and activist Howard Zinn refers to the poem in A People's History of the United States.

"[10] In particular, Zinn uses "The Mask of Anarchy" as an example of literature that members of the American labour movement would read to other workers to inform and educate them.

[15] The phrase 'a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few' also appears in the revised version of Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution.