Citizens

 

The Bakers, the Millers, the watchmakers.

The clerics, the priests and the reeves.

The plougher of fields and the sower of seeds.

The bankers, the scoundrels, the thieves.

The farmers, the tailors, the shopkeepers.

The woman who sits home and weaves.

The godless, the hypocrites and sinners.

The bishop who prays and believes.

 

The innkeepers, drunks and abstainers,

Millworkers, miners, ships-mates.

The poets, musicians and singers

From grand manors and council estates.

From the Brigantes, the Vikings, the Saxons,

Come the heroes, the villains, the great

And the good of this old Merrie City

Via Northgate, Kirkgate, Westgate.

 

The teachers, the healers, the prophets,

explorers, inventors, kind folk.

Labourers, workers, rich man and poor -

Survivors of the Norman Yoke.

The nurses, the doctors, the chemists,

The carers of those who are broke.

Those who toil by day or by night

The gatherers of the coal and the coke.

 

In the inns we will sing of these people,

The ghosts hidden behind the veil,

Of this place by the banks of the Calder

Where every one of us hales.

From the church songs that soar to the heavens

To the nursery rhyme from the gaol.

Where the pretender white rose king was beheaded.

We tell our proud Yorkshire tales

 

The clarion call of the workers.

The cathedral bells they have peeled.

The brave soldiers fighting for freedom

And returning with wounds not yet healed.

The indigenous and the immigrants

With local origins - or further afield.

Come settle in peace in this place we call home.

Proud citizens all of Wakefield.