We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years

Lyrics

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 your crimson wool Well, if blood be the price of all your wealth, good God, we have paid in full There is never a mine blown skyward now, but we're buried alive for you There is never a wreck drifts shorеward now, but we are its ghastly crew Go rеckon our dead by the forges red or the factories where we spin Well, 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—for that was our doom, you know From the days when you chained us in your fields to the strike of a week ago You have taken our lives, our husbands and our wives, and we're told it's your legal share Well, if blood be the price of your lawful wealth, good God, we have bought it fair! Good God, we have bought it fair!