We Have Fed You All a Thousand 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 to give you rest

And you lie on crimson wool.

Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,

Good God! We have paid it 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.

If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,

Good God! We have paid it in!

We have fed you all a thousand years-

For that was our doom, you know,

From the days when you chained us in your fields

To the strike a week ago.

You have taken our lives, and our babies 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!