William Wordsworth’s ‘London, 1802’, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45528/london-1802

in Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form, bemoans English society’s moral degradation and the deleterious effects of the Industrial Revolution. Wordsworth nostalgically calls on John Milton, poet and civil servant (1608-1674) to as it were, restore England to her former glory.

By way of contrast, having...

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I Citizen, can let no king be mine,

I will not swear an oath in your god’s name.

You do not reign by any right divine,

To my loyalty you have no right, no claim.

 I swear I’ll pay to these my true allegian...

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