We Who Prayed and Wept

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty

accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send thy necessity.

Wendell Berry (1980)