To the King of England

Wednesday, November 11th, 1778.

1 The rain pours down — the city looks forlorn —
2 And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn.
3 Close by my fire; with doors and windows fast,
4 And sweetly shelter’d from the driving blast,
5 To gayer thoughts, I bid a day’s adieu,
6 To spend a scene of solitude with you.
7 So oft has black revenge engross’d the care
8 Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare;
9 So oft has guilt in all its thousand dens
10 Call’d forth the vengeance of chastising pens;
11 That when I fain would ease my heart on you,
12 No thought is left untold — no passion new.
13 From flight to flight the mental path appears
14 Worn with the steps of near six thousand years,
15 And fill’d throughout with ev’ry scene of pain,
16 From cain to george, and back from george to cain.
17 Alike in cruelty, alike in hate,
18 In guilt alike, and more alike in fate;
19 Both curs’d supremely (for the blood they drew)
20 Each from the rising world while each was new.
21 Go second Cain, true likeness of the first,
22 And strew thy blasted head with homely dust —
23 In ashes sit — in wretched sackcloth weep —
24 And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep.
25 Go, haunt the tombs, and single out the place
26 Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace.
27 Go, spell the letters on some mould’ring urn,
28 And ask if he who sleeps there can return.
29 Go count the numbers that in silence lie,
30 And learn by study what it is to die.
31 For sure that heart — if any heart you own —
32 Conceits that man expires without a groan;
33 That he who lives, receives from you a grace,
34 Or death is nothing but a change of place;
35 That peace is dull; that joy from sorrow springs.
36 And war the royal raree-show of things.
37 Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind,
38 This sport of death — this cockpit of mankind.
39 Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain;
40 Why cries the orphan — “Oh my father’s slain.”
41 Why hangs the sire his paralytic head,
42 And nods with manly grief — “My son is dead.”
43 Why shrieks the maiden, (robb’d of ease and sense,)
44 “He’s gone — He’s kill’d — Oh! Heavens take me hence.”
45 Why drops the tear from off the sister’s cheek,
46 And sweetly tells the sorrows she would speak.
47 Why lisps the infant on its mother’s lap,
48 And looking round the parlour — “Where is pap.”
49 Why weeps the mother when the question’s ask’d,
50 And kiss an answer as the easiest task;
51 Or why with lonely steps does pensive John
52 To all the neighbour’s tell — “Poor master’s gone.”
53 Oh! Could I paint the passions I can feel,
54 Or point a horror that would wound like steel,
55 To thy unfeeling, unrelenting mind,
56 I’d send a torture and relieve mankind.
57 Thou, that art husband, father, brother, all
58 The tender names that kindred learn to call,
59 Yet like an image, carv’d in massy stone,
60 Thou bear’st the shape, but sentiment has none;
61 Allied by dust and figure, not by mind,
62 Thou only herd’st but lives not with mankind,
63 And prone to love like some outrageous ape
64 Thou know’st each class of beings by their shape.
65 Since then no hopes to civilize remain,
66 And all petitions have gone forth in vain,
67 One prayer is left, which dreads no proud reply,
68 That he who made you breathe, would bid you die.
Common Sense. Philadelphia.

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Title (in Source Edition): To the King of England Wednesday, November 11th, 1778.
Author: Thomas Paine
Themes:
Genres: address
Headnote: Pennsylvania Packet, 14 November 1778

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Cleary, Scott M., ed. Claeys, Gregory, gen. ed. Thomas Paine Collected Writings. Vol. II. Part 2: Poetry. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2026. 5 Volumes.

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