Is there anything glorious about August the twelfth?
When people privileged with exceptional wealth
Think it their right, to blast the sky
And the birds that fly, ne'er so high.

Is there dignity to the flurry that follows?
To be first delivering corpses to fellows
And consorts, dining in fair London town
On the shot blasted flesh, fallen down ...

To British soil, the land of the free!
So free, to be trapped in iniquity,
In pursuit of what some think to be glorious
But surely Blake's heaven would be furious.

David Applin
2018