When words fail us, we turn to the poets. And since last Friday's earthquake, one poem has been quoted everywhere, in the Daily Mail and the Financial Times, on blogs and social media, in conversations and over email.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
G.K. Chesterton’s “The Secret People”, published in 1907, prophesies an English revolution in which, after centuries of patient acquiescence in their own oppression, the people rise up against their arrogant rulers. It is “a cliché which for once seems completely apt”, says the author David Goodhart.
