Rise Like Lions Lyrics

(Written by Percy Shelley as part of a poem called The Mask of Anarchy)

Rise Like Lions after Slumber
in unvanquishable number
and shake your chains to earth like dew
which in sleep have fallen on you
we are many they are few
we are many and they are few

what is freedom?
you can tell that which slavery is too well
for its very name has grown to an echo of your own
it is to work and have such pay
as just meets life from day to day
in you limbs as in a cell
for the tyrants use to dwell
and to be for him made
loom and plough and sword and spade
with or without your own will bent
for their defense and nourishment

rise like lions...