Voices

I hear once more the march of feet

Pounding protest on our streets;

The same sad songs from every age

Singing of our long-tempered rage.

Although the wrongs they now declaim

And the words they use are not the same

The sound they make adds to the din

Of the historic steps of peasant men,

The dropping blade on a royal neck,

Some sighs of a starving suffragette

And the hobbled boots of Jarrow boys.

Now above that discordant noise

Are joined these many actions past

With the crash of batons and Millbank glass

And the roar of people, as they find,

That they are truly humankind.

Yet the cacophony of this all

Cannot drown out the caterwaul

Of life in commercial revelry;

Its moments of insanity

A steady beat to the rebel tune.

So though this stamp of feet will soon

Spread to distant homes again

Their resonance will help sustain

The incessant chorus following;

Our constant screams into the wind.