They sit in their chambers, aloof and supreme, where the parchment and quill weave a treacherous scheme,
Not kings, not true statesmen, but brokers of fate, who barter a nation for power's estate.
The old they let wither, the frail they let freeze, while strangers grow fat on the land’s subsidies,
For better a horde with no love for the past than voices who question, who think, who hold fast.
The steppes call for bodies, the ledger for gold, so sons shall be counted, their futures be sold,
Not for defence, nor for Albion’s grace, but to die in a war for another land’s place.
The press gang’s been polished, its chains renamed law, obedience summoned, dissent marked as flaw,
And those who would ask why the cold winds still bite shall find that a prison is warm in the night.
Yet taxes rise higher, the burden grows vast, for coffers must swell for the rulers to last,
The strangers need houses, their children need bread, who cares if the pensioners shiver instead?
The churches lie empty, the crescent gleams bright, and Canterbury kneels in a foreign-born rite,
For what is a nation but men who forget, who yield without sword, who comply without debt?
But hark to the whispers in alley and inn, where the air grows too thick with the stench of their sin,
A reckoning lingers in voices unheard, a tempest still shaping in thought and in word.
For patience wears thin when the winters are long, and hunger breeds more than a beggar’s dull song,
The streets that once echoed with duty and pride may yet bear the roar of a turning tide.
They think they are masters, they think they are wise, that history sleeps while they peddle their lies,
But Time is a teacher, and men will recall that rulers who gamble too often shall fall.
The banquet they feast at, the gold they bestow, the chains that they fasten, the lies that they sew,
Are paid for in silence, but not for all days, for sooner or later the silence betrays.
The ships are still sailing, the borders still breach, the preachers still call in a tongue not of each,
The taxman still knocks, and the old still decay, but the tide shall not bow when it’s summoned away.
For Albion slumbers, but never for long, its patience mistaken, its silence thought gone,
And woe to the hands that have shackled its might, when it rises to judge in the breaking of light.
(By John Shenton)