Miskatonic University Press

And down with all kings but King Ludd!

anarchism poetry

“Song for the Luddites” by Lord Byron comes from a letter he wrote to his friend Thomas Moore from Venice on 24 December 1816:

As the Liberty lads o’er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
O’er the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep in the gore he has poured.

Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!

I love the last line of the first stanza, so I got the Paranoid Print Company to make a vinyl sticker of it (4 in. wide).

Photo of the sticker, black text on white
Photo of the sticker, black text on white

I have a couple of dozen to give away, so if you’re in Canada and want one, send me an address and I’ll put one in the mail.

Here it is on the page, from page 42 of volume two of Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life edited by Thomas Moore (1831):

Page image
Page image

Byron’s maiden speech in the House of Lords had been against the anti-Luddite Frame-Breaking Act of 1812. It’s on page 600 of The Works of Lord Byron Complete in One Volume at the Internet Archive.

For more about the Luddites, a good recent book is Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (2023) by Brian Merchant.