When wilt thou save the people? O God of mercy! when? Not kings and lords, but nations! Not thrones and crowns, but men! Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they! Let them not pass, like weeds, away! Their heritage a sunless day! God save the people! Shall crime bring crime for ever, Strength aiding still the strong? Is it thy will, O Father! That man shall toil for wrong? "No!" say thy mountains; "No!" thy skies; "Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise, And songs be heard instead of sighs." God save the people! When wilt thou save the people? O God of mercy! when? The people, Lord! the people! Not thrones and crowns, but men! God save the people! thine they are; Thy children, as thy angels fair; Save them from bondage and despair! God save the people! A Hymn BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON (English essayist and poet, born 1874) O God of earth and altar Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not Thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, From lies of tongue and pen, From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men, From sale and profanation Of honor and the sword, From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us, good Lord. Tie in a living tether The priest and prince and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us all; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free, Lift up a living nation, A single sword to Thee. The World's Way BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (One of the series of sonnets in which the English dramatist, 1564-1616, voiced his inmost soul) Tired with all these, for restful death I cry-- As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honor shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disablèd, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good attending captain Ill:-- Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone. Written in London, September, 1802 BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (One of the great sonnets of England's poet of nature; 1770-1850. Poet laureate in 1843)