Oh once there stood a noble breed, the stalwart guards of law,
Who walked the streets with steady tread and held the rogues in awe.
But now they prowl the shadowed net, where words, not knives, draw blood,
And wade through whispers, tweets, and jest, while crime still swells the flood.
The cutpurse laughs, the burglar grins, the groomer works unchecked,
The maiden clutches at her keys, her path by fear bedecked.
Yet watch! The coppers scan the waves, not for the villain’s trail,
But for a jest on foreign shores, a joke they’ll call "a jail."
"A threat to peace!" the watchmen cry, "this speech we shall suppress!"
Yet murder stalks the weeping lanes in bloodstains and distress.
No thief is chased, no thug pursued, while tyrants stoke their wrath,
And gentle folk are hauled away for thoughts they never hath.
"We’ll come for you!" the Watchmen snarl, as tyrants oft have said,
Yet know they not, on distant shores, free men will not be led.
No lawman born of London town shall cross the ocean wide,
To shackle those who mock their kings or wound their paper pride.
Oh, what of London’s bleeding streets, where justice stands undone?
Where women shrink from looming shapes and dare not trust the sun?
What of the hearths where fear takes root, where law is but a name?
Shall empty words be met with force, while lawless men walk tame?
Turn back, turn back, ye wayward hounds, and loose these phantom chains,
No truncheon raised at spoken thought shall ever break its reigns.
The task you swore, the pledge you made, was not to chase the free,
But to defend, to shield, to serve, return to what must be!
For when the watchman scorns his post and leaves the flock betrayed,
The wolves come howling through the night, and none shall bring them aid.
But speech runs swifter than the hound, and truth shall find its way,
No tyrant’s hand, nor coward’s rule, shall bid the dawn delay.
(By John Shenton)