To the King of England Wednesday, November 11th, 1778. Thomas Paine Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Cleary, Scott M., ed. Claeys, Gregory, gen. ed. Thomas Paine Collected Writings. Vol. II. Part 2: Poetry. Princeton Princeton UP 2026 pp. []-[]. 5 Volumes.

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To the King of England Wednesday , November 11th , 1778. The rain pours down — the city looks forlorn — And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn . Close by my fire ; with doors and windows fast , And sweetly shelter’d from the driving blast , To gayer thoughts , I bid a day’s adieu , To spend a scene of solitude with you . So oft has black revenge engross’d the care Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare ; So oft has guilt in all its thousand dens Call’d forth the vengeance of chastising pens ; That when I fain would ease my heart on you , No thought is left untold — no passion new . From flight to flight the mental path appears Worn with the steps of near six thousand years , And fill’d throughout with ev’ry scene of pain , From cain to george , and back from george to cain . Alike in cruelty , alike in hate , In guilt alike , and more alike in fate ; Both curs’d supremely ( for the blood they drew ) Each from the rising world while each was new . Go second Cain , true likeness of the first , And strew thy blasted head with homely dust — In ashes sit — in wretched sackcloth weep — And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep . Go , haunt the tombs , and single out the place Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace . Go , spell the letters on some mould’ring urn , And ask if he who sleeps there can return . Go count the numbers that in silence lie , And learn by study what it is to die . For sure that heart — if any heart you own — Conceits that man expires without a groan ; That he who lives , receives from you a grace , Or death is nothing but a change of place ; That peace is dull ; that joy from sorrow springs . And war the royal raree-show of things . Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind , This sport of death — this cockpit of mankind . Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain ; Why cries the orphan — “ Oh my father’s slain . ” Why hangs the sire his paralytic head , And nods with manly grief — “ My son is dead . ” Why shrieks the maiden , ( robb’d of ease and sense , ) “ He’s gone — He’s kill’d — Oh ! Heavens take me hence . ” Why drops the tear from off the sister’s cheek , And sweetly tells the sorrows she would speak . Why lisps the infant on its mother’s lap , And looking round the parlour — “ Where is pap . ” Why weeps the mother when the question’s ask’d , And kiss an answer as the easiest task ; Or why with lonely steps does pensive John To all the neighbour’s tell — “ Poor master’s gone . ” Oh ! Could I paint the passions I can feel , Or point a horror that would wound like steel , To thy unfeeling , unrelenting mind , I’d send a torture and relieve mankind . Thou , that art husband , father , brother , all The tender names that kindred learn to call , Yet like an image , carv’d in massy stone , Thou bear’st the shape , but sentiment has none ; Allied by dust and figure , not by mind , Thou only herd’st but lives not with mankind , And prone to love like some outrageous ape Thou know’st each class of beings by their shape . Since then no hopes to civilize remain , And all petitions have gone forth in vain , One prayer is left , which dreads no proud reply , That he who made you breathe , would bid you die . Common Sense . Philadelphia .