John Thelwall (1764-1834), though victim of a stammer as a child, became the foremost orator in England of the 1790s, not in the stuffy gentleman\u2019s club of Parliament but in the wide open common fields where the people could come to hear him. The government imprisoned him on a charge of high treason. He published his Poems Written in Close Confinement in The Tower and Newgate<\/i> (1795).<\/p>\n
The sonnet \u201cTo Tyranny\u201d was written in the Tower of London on 14 July 1794. It is for the Greeks who\u2019ve just lost their radio and TV, shut down to please the IMF, the European Commission and the European Bank. It is for the people in Istanbul at Taksim Square who are struggling to save some trees, and preserve an ancient neighborhood against proud development pomp. And it is for us to help us remember the depth of our struggle and our duty of solidarity.<\/p>\n
\nTo Tyranny<\/strong><\/p>\n
O Hell born Tyranny! How blest the land<\/p>\n
Whose watchful citizens with dauntless breast<\/p>\n
Oppose thy first<\/i> approach! With aspect bland<\/p>\n
Thou wont, alas! too oft, to lull to rest<\/p>\n
The sterner virtues that should guard the throne<\/p>\n
Of Liberty. Deck\u2019d with the gaudy zone<\/p>\n
Of Pomp, and usher\u2019d with lascivious arts<\/p>\n
Of glossing Luxury thy fraudful smile<\/p>\n
Ensnares the dazzled senses, till our hearts<\/p>\n
Sink, palsied, in degenerate lethargy.<\/p>\n
Then bursts the swoln destruction forth; and while<\/p>\n
Down the rough tide of Power Oppression drives<\/p>\n
The shipwreck\u2019ed multitude, no hope survives,<\/p>\n
But from the whelming storm of Anarchy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
This sonnet was composed in Newgate Prison on 24 October 1794. The jury found Thelwall innocent. The government responded by passing two Gagging Acts partly intended to silence him. It is for Julian Asange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n
\nThe Cell<\/strong><\/p>\n
Within the Dungeon\u2019s noxious gloom<\/p>\n
The Patriot still, with dauntless breast,<\/p>\n
The cheerful aspect can assume \u2014<\/p>\n
And smile \u2014 in conscious Virtue blest!<\/p>\n
The damp foul floor, the ragged wall,<\/p>\n
And shattered window, grated high;<\/p>\n
The trembling ruffian may appal,<\/p>\n
Whose thoughts no sweet resource supply.<\/p>\n
But he, unaw\u2019d by guilty fears<\/p>\n
(To Freedom and his Country true)<\/p>\n
Who o\u2019er a race of well-spent years<\/p>\n
Can cast the retrospective view,<\/p>\n
Looks inward to his heart, and sees<\/p>\n
The objects that must ever please.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Peter Linebaugh<\/strong>\u00a0teaches history at the University of Toledo.\u00a0The London Hanged<\/a>\u00a0and (with Marcus Rediker)\u00a0The Many-Headed Hydra: the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic<\/a>. His essay on the history of May Day is included in\u00a0Serpents in the Garden<\/a>. His latest book is the\u00a0Magna Carta Manifesto<\/a>. He can be reached at:plineba@yahoo.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n