Advance Democracy

Across the darkened city

The frosty searchlights creep

Alert for the first marauder

To steal upon our sleep.

We see the sudden headlines

Float on the muttering tide

We hear them warn and threaten

And wonder what they hide.

There are whispers across tables,

Talks in a shutter'd room.

The price on which they bargain

Will be a people's doom.

There's a roar of war in the factories

And idle hands on the street

And Europe held in nightmare

By the thud of marching feet.

Now sinks the sun of surety,

The shadows growing tall

Of the big bosses plotting

Their biggest coup of all.

Is there no strength to save us?

No power we can trust

Before our lives and liberties

Are powder'd into dust.

Time to arise Democracy

Time to rise up and cry

That what our fathers fought for

We'll not allow to die.

Time to resolve divisions,

Time to renew our pride,

Time to decide

Time to burst our house of glass.

Rise as a single being

In one resolve arrayed:

Life shall be for the people

That's by the people made.