"Eagle in the Chains of Bondage"

I am a symbol.

I stand for an ideal, a dream, a nation.

I embody hope and life anew.

I am many different things to many different people.

My freedom is the freedom of God's creation

and those he brought forth to this new land.

And so as long as the people were free I was free.

I soared high and nothing could hold me back.

My feathers gleamed in the rays of the hopes and dreams of the people who inhabit the land.

But now, I am no longer free.

The land that flowed with milk and honey;

The land that once gave shelter to the huddled masses;

the opiates of this age have made a mockery of me.

Now I am nothing more than a bondage wardbird;

an empty totem.

as God's light and truth was traded for a lie,

So I too suffered.

The demons of violence, racial intolerance, drugs,

and where life is treated with contempt and criminals walk free.

With each new demon the glory fades

and I remain an eagle in the chains of bondage.

An empty shell of who I was;

a dim and distant memory of what I stood for.

Lord, I lift my eagle's cry to you.

Restore, O God this once mighty land to her former estate.

We've traded you, O Lord, for an unholy ideal.

Waken us before it's too late!

Help us Lord,

set our paths straight

and set our eyes again on you.

Give us again our strength lest we falter.

O woe to you America!

Take heed or fall into obscurity

and I fade into the past;

nothing more than a dim and distant memory;

an eagle in the chains of bondage.