Chartered

Lift up your voice, let the clear air carry

From the Sounds and the Firths out to the seas,

Enter in the inlets, in the estuaries,

Vocal now, no supplicants’ pleas.

These are not the voices of the woaded tribes,

But the born to be, destined to be free,

Lift up your voice, let the message ride,

Polemicists, apologists we.

These are the voices of the meek grown bold,

Emboldened by the truth when it is known,

History rewritten, in the present told,

Seeds of justice long ago sown.

Vanquish defensive, the cringe once bred

By the words of the woeful, books and news,

Lift up your voices, elevate your head,

Sing songs of freedom born of battled blues.

Carry the banner of the free, unveiled,

Perish the thought of lowly born,

People of the future, never more assailed,

Abandon ashes, sackcloth ever worn.

Shrug off the fear, designating state,

Antonym to action, thus enslaved,

Write now with purpose on a wipe-cleaned slate,

Capitalised, italicised, writ brave.

Be the free citizens where’er you live,

Terminology none may revoke,

Pass on egality as the gift you give,

Charter of mankind now quote, invoke.