A Lament For England

After the end;
A time of no turning back.
Where mistakes lie bare before us,
And we see all that lacked.

We gaze on the past with nostalgia,
The future with quiet fright,
For burning down our history
And plunging into blight.

The crops have withered away,
Our teeth gnash upon stone;
How fortunate we once were
To call England our home.

We took our peace for granted,
Eyes fixed on foreign affairs,
Neglecting what lay within;
Our own house, in despair.

Money-hungry heathens,
Masked as ‘one of the people,’
Seek only to sow chaos
Beneath the Christian steeple.

We were a land of welcome,
Accepting every faith,
Yet tolerance turned to intrusion,
And the English lost their place.

Our country overturned,
Our history forgotten.
What was that land of old,
Where men wore suit and button?

After the death of England,
We stand where we began:
A nation split and soulless,
Civility unmanned.

Crime wreaks upon our streets,
While Parliament preaches new policy-
Sipping tea in marble halls,
Feigned guardians of democracy.

They have fooled us into believing
They labour for our good,
Yet they are the new aristocrats;
Quail and caviar as their food.

They denounce the old hierarchies,
Then crown themselves anew -
Modern monarchs in disguise,
With power absolute over you.

As poor and rich alike
Toil away their days,
They fund the politician’s life:
His state estate, his holidays.

As the nation’s spirit wanes,
Its guts are violently wrenched,
Like men in Flanders Fields;
Bombarded in their trench.

Few now wear the poppy;
‘History is irrelevant,’ they claim.
The dead have died,
And pride has turned to shame.

What has become of this pleasant land?
Now full of the ungrateful.
They meddle in foreign quarrels,
Forgetting the loyal and faithful.

What happened to that spirit
We were once urged to adore?
Poor Britannia, who sought to spread our values
Of diplomacy and more.