We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years
We have fed you all for a thousand years
And here we are we’re still unfed
Though there`s never a dollar of all your wealth
That doesn’t mark the workers dead
We have given our best to give you rest
Yet you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Then we have paid in full
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we`re buried alive for you
There`s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
And if blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Then we have paid it in
We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you worked us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives from our children and wives
And we`re told it`s your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God we bought it fair
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we`re buried alive for you
There`s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
And if blood be the price of all your wealth
Then we have paid it in