When wilt thou save the people?
Oh, God of mercy! when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
-Ebenezer Elliott
Oh God, we are the lost mortals;
our sole distress is of our souls.
Our eyes behold no small hurdles:
and the people will not go alone.
We see no path through the fog and
distrust the flight of the seagull.
Lead this horse to water. Lord,
we fear not hands, but idle minds.
Our solemn cries seize the steeple:
When wilt thou save the people?
Our thoughts are corralled like sheep;
too much heaven on our minds.
Our cries are pitiful but no less loud
we shamble blind through our fog.
Because we refuse to see,
we entrust our sight to wisemen
and we have no faith in medicine.
Oh God! Save us from ourselves!
Oh God, if not now then, when?
Oh, God of mercy! when?
Still we are given no reply?
Just a song to rally behind.
An anthem for the people, Lord?
Should we instead speak for ourselves?
Endeavour for a fearless world
where we destroy man’s reservations?
Forward to meet eras unknown!
We will cry from the battlements:
Equality for all stations!
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Now, do not be frightened, Lord.
Go! You must tend to the Queen.
Perhaps God’s greatest gift
is to remain unseen.
We cast off fear of some idle sin;
the people will anoint their judges, again.
The people’s empire on the rubble of yours,
The people without sin or strife or wars!
It is the people you will look to then!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
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