Skip to content
ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

The Wandering Jew's Soliloquy

Percy Bysshe Shelley·1792–1822
Lines:29Movement:Romanticism
Is it the Eternal Triune, is it HeWho dares arrest the wheels of destinyAnd plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?Will not the lightning's blast destroy my frame?Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells?No--let me hie where dark Destruction dwells,To rouse her from her deeply caverned lair,And, taunting her cursed sluggishness to ire,Light long Oblivion's death-torch at its flameAnd calmly mount Annihilation's pyre.Tyrant of Earth! pale Misery's jackal Thou!Are there no stores of vengeful violent fateWithin the magazines of Thy fierce hate?No poison in the clouds to bathe a browThat lowers on Thee with desperate contempt?Where is the noonday Pestilence that slewThe myriad sons of Israel's favoured nation?Where the destroying Minister that flewPouring the fiery tide of desolationUpon the leagued Assyrian's attempt?Where the dark Earthquake-daemon who engorgedAt the dread word Korah's unconscious crew?Or the Angel's two-edged sword of fire that urgedOur primal parents from their bower of bliss(Reared by Thine hand) for errors not their ownBy Thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown?Yes! I would court a ruin such as this,Almighty Tyrant! and give thanks to Thee--Drink deeply--drain the cup of hate; remit this--I may die.