In mine, in factory, in sweatshop airless,
We robbed our children of their youth.
We made them toil in painful bondage,
To work themselves to early graves.
Others a Fagin taught to plunder,
Homes and pockets of the rich.
Then outraged greed, in guise of virtue,
Called for prison, birch and noose.
Called for fearful retribution,
On starving tenants forced to steal.
Dressed up fears of revolution,
With self-indulgent, and self-righteous zeal.
Called for flogging, transportation.
Called for little boys to die.
And there set up a gulf of hatred,
Fuelled by ignorance and lies.
Then came Fry and generous Thornton.
Shaftesbury, Wilberforce and Henry Cooke.
Taught the people love’s great Gospel.
Taught the people God’s own Book.
Healed deep rifts in our society.
Lord and worker, Queen and serf.
Muller, Stephenson, ;Barnado,
Made, with love, a Commonwealth.
For a little while we gloried,
In our empire, and our land.
But forgot true glory based on,
Love of God and fellow man.
We were led to think that we were,
Better than those without the law.
But forgot the God who gave it,
Cares for widows and the poor.
Loves the destitute and weary.
From the cradle to the grave.
We, in ignorance, decided, greed and hatred,
Made a better world than love.