We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years

We have fed you all for a thousand years

And you hail us still unfed

Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth

But marks the workers' dead

We have yielded our best for to give you rest

And you lie on a crimson wool

Oh, if blood be the price of all your wealth

Good God! We have paid in full!

'Cause there's never a mine blown skyward now

But we're buried alive for you

And there's never a wreck drifting shoreward now

But we are its ghastly crew

Come and reckon our dead by the forges red

And the factories where we spin

Oh, if blood be the price of your cursed wealth

Good God! We have paid it in!

We have fed you all for a thousand years

And that was our doom, you know

From the days when you chained men in your fields

To the strike of a week ago

You have taken our lives, our husbands and wives

Called it your legal share

But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth

Good God! We have bought it fair!

Good God! We have bought it fair!