The seasoned hands once broke the sod, the anvils sang, the tall ships ran,
They paid in youth, in blood, in years, to build the strength of crown and land;
Yet now their counsel fades to hush, their labours footnoted and filed,
While clerks of state count seats and sums, and court each newly gathered child.
The chimneys cool, the winter bites, the pantry echoes hollow and spare,
Yet coined relief flows swift and warm where rising foreign voices share;
The white-haired ranks grow gaunt and still, their ration bowls crust hard with rime,
While rulers weigh not debt of years, but tides of ballots cast in time.
Beyond the foam, Old Albion’s vault sits clenched in narrow-fingered care,
She withholds frost-earned pension bread from kin who bore her burdens there;
Yet wide she casts her treasury hand to win new fealty fresh and free,
Thus lion, loom, and ledger fade, and covenant thins from sea to sea.
(By John Shenton)